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Variance components for survival of piglets at farrowing using a reduced animal model

Genetics Selection Evolution volume 38, Article number: 359 (2006) Cite this article

Abstract

Farrowing survival is usually analysed as a trait of the sow, but this precludes estimation of any direct genetic effects associated with individual piglets. In order to estimate these effects, which are particularly important for sire lines, it is necessary to fit an animal model. However this can be computationally very demanding. We show how direct and maternal genetic effects can be estimated with a simpler analysis based on the reduced animal model and we illustrate the method using farrowing survival information on 118 193 piglets in 10 314 litters. We achieve a 30% reduction in computing time and a 70% reduction in memory use, with no important loss of accuracy. This use of the reduced animal model is not only of interest for pig breeding but also for poultry and fish breeding where large full-sib families are performance tested.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, UK

    Ian M.S. White & Sue Brotherstone

  2. Sustainable Livestock Systems Group, Scottish Agriculture College, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian, EH26 0PH, UK

    Rainer Roehe & Sue Brotherstone

  3. PIC International Group, Ratsteich 31, D-24837, Schleswig, Germany

    Pieter W. Knap

Authors
  1. Ian M.S. White
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  2. Rainer Roehe
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  3. Pieter W. Knap
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  4. Sue Brotherstone
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ian M.S. White.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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White, I.M., Roehe, R., Knap, P.W. et al. Variance components for survival of piglets at farrowing using a reduced animal model. Genet Sel Evol 38, 359 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/1297-9686-38-4-359

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1297-9686-38-4-359

Keywords

Genetics Selection Evolution

ISSN: 1297-9686