Interrelationships of Swine Weights at Three Ages

Abstract

The interrelationships of birth, 56-day and 154-day weights for 1894 pigs raised at the Indiana and two Nebraska experiment stations are presented. The average within-litter correlations were. birth-weaning weight 0.53, birth-154-day weight 0.40, and 56-day-154-day weight 0.63. The coefficient of determination (r²) of the 56-day weight on 154 day weight is .40 indicating that a knowledge of 56-day weight accounts for only 40 percent of the variance in 154-day weight. Selecting heavy pigs at 56-days in order to increase weight at 154-days can thus be expected to have only a low efficiency. Due principally to number of pigs, the relationship between total litter weights at 56 and 154 days of age is high. Copyright © . .