The data used in these analyses were compiled from individual feeding recor
ds of 1832 pigs from 70 sire families using FIRE (food intake recording equ
ipment) system from Hunday Electronics Ltd at the Cotswold Pig Development
Company. Pigs were on test between 45 (s.d. 2.76) kg and 95 (s.d. 6.78) kg.
Daily food intake (DFI kg), food intake per visit (FIV kg), number of visi
ts per day (NV), duration of Each visit (TV min), time in the feeder per da
y (TD min), feeding rate (FR kg/min) and number of non-feeding visits per d
ay (NFV), were measured as means of test and DFI was also recorded as means
of bi-weekly periods of test. Performance test traits of backfat depth off
test (BF mm), food conversion ratio (FCR kg/kg) and average daily gain (AD
G kg), over the test period, were also measured.
Parameters were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood with a multivari
ate individual animal model. DFI had a heritability of 0.21 ranging from 0.
18 to 0.26 over the four test periods. Correlations between DFI in each tes
t period were high (r(g) = 0.75 to 0.99). DFI was highly correlated with pe
rformance test traits (0.61 to 0.78) but had low correlations with feeding
pattern traits (0.0 to 0.24). The heritabilities of feeding pattern traits
were low (0.06 to 0.11) with the exception of FIV (0.27) and NV (0.34) but
correlations between feeding pattern traits were high. FIV, NV and TV were
moderately correlated with ADG (r(g) = 0.49, -0.29, 0.33 respectively), BF
(r(g) = 0.35, -0.15, 0.17 respectively) and FCR (r(g) = -0.12, 0.31, -0.27
respectively). Feeding patterns may he changed substantially by selection a
nd the genetic correlations with performance test traits indicate that feed
ing patterns traits call be usefully incorporated in selection criteria to
improve somewhat the accuracy of selection.