C34—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 28,1980
Tested boars mean more profit
BY DORIS HENRIQUE
Delaware Ag Writer
NEWARK, Del. - “A
performance tested boar can
save his owner up to $3OOO
over his productive lifetime
in feed efficiency passed on
to his offspring,” says
University of Delaware
extension livestock
specialist Richard Fowler.
“This is one reason there’s
little trouble selling the
young boars that make it
through the state’s official
boar test each year.”
Forty-four animals m 11
pens are involved in the 1980
trials, which started at the
end of May. The trials are
being run at the state’s
Swine Test Station on the
farm of Mrs. Carlos Elliott,
just south of Laurel.
Five breeds Berkshire,
Yorkshire, Duroc, Lan
drace, and Chester White
Hogging it down competitors in Delaware’s
1980 Boar Test have nothing better to do than eat,
sleep and grow.
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top-performing breeding stock. A high indexing boar can save his owner
thousands of dollars in feed-efficient offspring.
are represented, coming
from Pennsylvania,
Maryland, New York, and
North Carolina.
The purpose of the test,
which is sponsored jointly by
the Delaware Pork
Producers Association and
the Delaware Cooperative
Extension Service, is to
identify animals that score
well in such heritable traits
as backfat thickness and
average daily gam and feed
conversion. Animals are also
scored for conformation.
All these factors will affect
the production efficiency
and marketability of their
offspring. Conformation
traits and amount of backfat
are highly heritable. Feed
conversion and average
daily gam are 30 to 40 per
cent heritable, Fowler said.
A good tested boar has the
capacity to improve the feed
efficiency of his offsprmg by
about one-tenth of a pound,
explams Fowler This adds
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up to a potential savmgs to
the producer of about $1.50
per market hog.
A smgle boar can sire a
minimum of 650 pigs a year.
This means a savmgs of
nearly $l,OOO per year,
probably for three years.
Delaware fanners who’ve
bought tested stock from
previous trials don’t require
any convincing. They want
to buy more m fact, reports
Fowler, people are already
lining up to buy boars from
this latest trial when they go
up for auction next Sep
tember.
In spite of the fact that no
Delaware boars are involved
m this year’s trial, the
livestock specialist strongly
favors continuing the
program.
“My feeling is that we’ll
test boars from other states
as long as they have good
sales acceptance here,” he
says. “I see us continuing to
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distribute boars to local
producers.”
In following up on animals
from previous trials, he’s
found the performance of
pigs they’ve sired to be
good—a noted improvement,
in fact, over non-test boars.
“I think the proper way to
use a tested boar is to take
him home and mate him to
your best gilts,” says
Fowler. “Don’t try to mate
him to everything on the
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farm. By using him with
your best replacement gilts
you should be able to make
rapid herd improvement in
terms of litter size, growth
rate and conformation.”
It’s going to take this kind
of good herd management to
make money raising hogs
over the next decade, he
predicts. Everybody agrees
the 70’s were a good time to
be in the pig business.
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