Topigs Norsvin pays a lot of attention to congenital defects. Even though these defects are rarely seen in our pigs, we want to minimize these. Piglets born with these defects are less productive and require more labor. The most important thing is, however, that they damage animal welfare, the health and the performance of the pig.
We found genetic regions explaining phenotypic variation for many of these defects and are using this information in our breeding program to reduce the prevalence of these unwanted defects.
We also breed healthy pigs at another level. New traits that we are busy implementing in our breeding goals are disease resilience in general and some specific pathogens. This increases the resistance to pathogens in the pigs and when they get sick anyway, they are better capable to cope with the disease and recover faster.
