OUTSTANDING performance has been achieved by one of Cotswold's 2006 boars while on test at the company's Wiltshire nucleus unit.
Boar A33415T, nicknamed Errol and pictured, above, out-performed all his contemporaries, gaining 1,340g a day - more than 20lb a week - between 42kg and 95kg.
Despite his phenomenal growth, Errol remained lean with a P2 backfat depth of just 4.6mm - less than half the average for boars in the top third of herds recorded in the Meat and Livestock Commission's 2000 Pig Yearbook - and achieved a lean tissue deposition rate of 714g per day.
Dr Tony Hall, Cotswold International's European genetics and research manager, said: "It is more biologically efficient to lay down lean tissue than fat so the producer gains the benefit of improved feed conversion. Processors are increasingly concerned with the presence of lean rather than simply absence of fat.
Errol is standing for AI at the company's stud in Oxfordshire for use, initially, in the company's nucleus units. His semen will later be available to commercial pig farmers.
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