New MSU Research to Improve Pig Well-being Through Breeding

June 21, 2017 — 

Michigan State University animal geneticist Juan Steibel is leading a group of researchers to develop methods to breed pigs that are less aggressive. He has received a nearly $1 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture for this project, and is supported by the Michigan Alliance for Animal Agriculture and the National Pork Board. [Source: Michigan State Univ. - MSU Today, June 16, 2017]

For centuries, pork producers have bred pigs for desirable physical characteristics, such as faster growth and improved meat quality. Breeding the animals for more desirable social behavior has proved much more difficult. Aggressive behaviors such as fighting significantly compromise the welfare and productivity of pigs on farms by causing injuries that have negative impacts on both the health and the growth of the animals.

As Michigan's pork industry voluntarily transitions from separating pregnant female pigs - a practice that eliminated fighting but has been linked to other health and welfare concerns - to keeping them in larger groups by 2020, reducing aggressive behavior through breeding has become an important priority.

"Keeping pigs in larger social groups solves some problems but creates others," said Steibel, associate professor in the MSU Department of Animal Science. "Fortunately, we now have the technology to address those new problems."