Special Issue "Pig Farming and Breeding"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Pigs".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Marek Babicz
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Animal Breeding and Biodiversity Conservation, Faculty of Biology, Animal Sciences and Bioeconomy, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Akademicka 13, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Interests: pigs; breeding; reproductive value; fattening value; slaughter value; meat quality; nutrition; genes; preservation of genetic resources
Dr. Magdalena Szyndler-Nędza
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pig Breeding, National Research Institute of Animal Production, Krakowska 1, 32-083 Balice, Poland
Interests: pigs; breeding; reproductive value; fattening and slaughter value; meat quality; milk quality, nutrition; genes; preservation of genetic resources

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Modern pig breeding and production requires knowledge of the basic factors that determine the productive value, breeding value, behavior, and health of this livestock species. To maximize the effects, it is necessary to use the latest achievements in different fields of science: animal science, biotechnology, genomics, etc. These components interpenetrate and complement each other, resulting in valuable breeding and fattening material. The major focus of pig farming and breeding is to produce pork of the quality desired by consumers. This necessitates the use of various measures, such as selection of native and commercial breeds, crossbreeding schemes, feeding, housing conditions, pork production, and processing technology. Each of these elements is at the same time treated as a separate research issue. Their understanding contributes to improving pig farming efficiency while identifying new relationships of potential scientific and practical significance.

This Special Issue presents current research issues regarding pig breeding value, reproductive performance, fattening value, and slaughter value, including quality of pork produced under different production systems (intensive, sustainable, organic). Other topics include veterinary prophylaxis, feeding, welfare, behavior, and the genetic background of different technological groups of pigs. Another aspect discussed in this Special Issue is the productive value of local pig breeds and the possibility of using them in modern production of high-quality meat and cured meat products.

Prof. Dr. Marek Babicz
Dr. Magdalena Szyndler-Nędza
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • pigs
  • breeds of pigs
  • genes
  • breeding value
  • productive value
  • welfare
  • feeding
  • prophylaxis
  • meat quality

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Article
The Effect of the Size of the Litter in Which the Sow Was Born on Her Lifetime Productivity
Animals 2021, 11(6), 1525; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061525 - 24 May 2021
Viewed by 626
Abstract
Improvement of lowly heritable traits is difficult, efforts must be made to take full advantage of the available information sources to improve them. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of the size of the litter in which the sow [...] Read more.
Improvement of lowly heritable traits is difficult, efforts must be made to take full advantage of the available information sources to improve them. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of the size of the litter in which the sow was born on her lifetime reproductive performance. Data on 22,683 litters were used to analyse the lifetime reproductive performance of 5623 Polish Large White sows. The sows from small litters (≤9) were on average the oldest at first farrowing, had the shortest herd life, the smallest number of litters, and the smallest sized litters (p ≤ 0.01). A positive relationship was established between the mean number of offspring born per litter and size of the litter in which the sow was born (p ≤ 0.01). For a sow to produce at least seven piglets per 100 days of reproduction, gilts from litters of at least 12 piglets should be selected for breeding. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pig Farming and Breeding)
Article
Oestrus Analysis of Sows Based on Bionic Boars and Machine Vision Technology
Animals 2021, 11(6), 1485; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061485 - 21 May 2021
Viewed by 575
Abstract
This study proposes a method and device for the intelligent mobile monitoring of oestrus on a sow farm, applied in the field of sow production. A bionic boar model that imitates the sounds, smells, and touch of real boars was built to detect [...] Read more.
This study proposes a method and device for the intelligent mobile monitoring of oestrus on a sow farm, applied in the field of sow production. A bionic boar model that imitates the sounds, smells, and touch of real boars was built to detect the oestrus of sows after weaning. Machine vision technology was used to identify the interactive behaviour between empty sows and bionic boars and to establish deep belief network (DBN), sparse autoencoder (SAE), and support vector machine (SVM) models, and the resulting recognition accuracy rates were 96.12%, 98.25%, and 90.00%, respectively. The interaction times and frequencies between the sow and the bionic boar and the static behaviours of both ears during heat were further analysed. The results show that there is a strong correlation between the duration of contact between the oestrus sow and the bionic boar and the static behaviours of both ears. The average contact duration between the sows in oestrus and the bionic boars was 29.7 s/3 min, and the average duration in which the ears of the oestrus sows remained static was 41.3 s/3 min. The interactions between the sow and the bionic boar were used as the basis for judging the sow’s oestrus states. In contrast with the methods of other studies, the proposed innovative design for recyclable bionic boars can be used to check emotions, and machine vision technology can be used to quickly identify oestrus behaviours. This approach can more accurately obtain the oestrus duration of a sow and provide a scientific reference for a sow’s conception time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pig Farming and Breeding)
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Article
Bloom Time Effect Depends on Muscle Type and May Determine the Results of pH and Color Instrumental Evaluation
Animals 2021, 11(5), 1282; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11051282 - 29 Apr 2021
Viewed by 351
Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the effect of 30 min bloom time and the type of muscle on pH and color parameters together with the possibility of estimating these measurements. The research material consisted of 270 samples from 6 muscle [...] Read more.
The aim of this study was to determine the effect of 30 min bloom time and the type of muscle on pH and color parameters together with the possibility of estimating these measurements. The research material consisted of 270 samples from 6 muscle types: LD—Longissimus dorsi, LL—Longissimus lumborum, IL—Iliacus, SEM—Semimembranosus, CT—Cutaneous trunci, LTD—Latissimus dorsi. Measurements included pH and color of fresh pork at 0 min, and after 30 min bloom time. Bloom time influenced all analyzed parameters, although to a varying effect, depending on the muscle type. The lowest pH values were noted for dorsal-located muscles (LD, LL), then in the ham area (IL, SEM), and the highest values of the location on the side surface of the carcass (CT, LTD). The large increase in the proportion of L* and a* was observed for CT muscle (20–30%, the highest of all observed) and LTD (20–25%); for LD and LL the largest growth changes were observed for parameters b* (15–20%) and H* (20–30%). The lowest number of strong correlations was noted for LD and CT muscles, and the largest for SEM. A very good fit (R2 > 0.90) of regression equations was achieved in 7 cases. The presented results are an important contribution to the rapid and precise instrumental evaluation of pH and color. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pig Farming and Breeding)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

1. Association of Ghrelin Gene Polymorphisms with Slaughter Traits in Pig

autors: Tyra M, Ropka-Molik K., Piórkowska K., Szyndler-Nędza M., Małopolska M., Babicz M.

2. Influence of the pig equipment system on physical parameters, basic chemical composition and the content of macro and microelements in pork offal.

Autors: Babicz M., at all 

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