A COMPARISON OF LARGE WHITE, LANDRACE AND HYBRID PIGS

Large White, Landrace, and Hybrid breeding stock (and the crosses betw een them) account for most pigs produced in Australia. Performance inf ormation for these 3 breeds (obtained from the NSW Boar Performance Te st Station) was analysed for a 5-year period (March 1986-June 1991). A t the commencement of the comparison, Landrace boars were significantl y slower growing than Hybrid boars, significantly fatter than Large Wh ite boars, and had a significantly poorer feed conversion ratio than b oth breeds. There were no differences by the end of the comparison. Du ring the 5-year period, Landrace boars showed a significant improvemen t in the Test Index relative to the other 2 breeds, being equal to the m in overall genetic merit at the end of the comparison. For all 3 bre eds, the Test Index improved substantially over this period; however, this observation was made in the absence of control populations. Despi te an increase in growth rate during the assessment period (40-90 kg l iveweight), there was no decrease in age at 40 kg.