MANAGEMENT EASINESS
Each piglet must be weaned !
NUCLEUS focus its selection on the easiness for farmer work, on animal welfare and on the obtention of optimal zootechnical performances. to succeed its challenges, our technicians have developped different projects including recordings, statistic and genomic studies.
1- One piglet born must be vigorous as soon as after birth !
To select this criteria, our breeders weight all pure breed piglets in the 24 h of the birth, at the time of the individual animal' identification. By this, technical teams want improve the homogeneity of the piglets' weight at birth. Also our technical teams want to give a synthetic note on the piglet's comportment at the time of weaning.
2020 - Weight of piglets at birth
| Nb | Average | Standard deviation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large-White | 49 082 | 1.402 | 0.277 |
| Landrace | 30 268 | 1.304 | 0.255 |
Our technical teams also want to approach the behavior of the piglet at the time of weighing with a synthetic note.
2- One piglet born must be able to access at its teat.
Since 15 years, NUCLEUS select its female line on the number of teats and on the number of functionnal teats.
Evolution of the number of teats in LW and LR
Make function of all teats during the first lactation with keeping maximum number of piglets under their original mother is a guarantee to have a brilliant career of the gilts
Our selection on the number of teats and our selection on prolificity converge in one aim of easiness management (wean a maximum of piglets under their original mother with limitation of inter litter adoptions); in a sanitary aim (homogeneous sanitary status inter-litter rank) and finally in an economical aim : maximise the number of piglets weaned/sow/year.
3- NUCLEUS has also adopted a scoring grid of maternal qualities during first days of lactation.
To give a note on different criterias of the gilts comportment with its piglets allow us to have a qualitative vision to know if we keep the sow for the rank n+ 1and also to select piglets coming from the sow with a very high potential.
4- Easiness Management is not only during lactation
Our studies on animal welfare and production of pigs without antibiotics show us that choices done during lactation influence a lot the future animals' comportment (cannibalism, agressiveness, comportment in group, ...). NUCLEUS genetic is issued of theses recordings and research. Our choices give us an advance at the benefit of our customers.
