Trial shipment of pigs sent to Mexico

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32892, 15 April 1972, Page 16

Trial shipment of pigs sent to Mexico

The first New Zealand pigs to go to Mexico left Christchurch yesterday. There are two registered Landrace boars and two registered Large White boars in the consignment from the Dalton stud of Mr G. S. Dailey at Oxford and they

are going to the Union Regional de Michoacan, a farmers’ co-operative organisation, at La Piedad, in the state of Michoacan. The pigs, which are about six weeks old and of an average weight of about 401 b, left Harewood early yesterday morning by Bristol Freighter for Auckland and later began their 36-hour journey to Mexico. No price has been disclosed for the sale of the pigs, which Mr T. P. McCloy, a livestock administrator in the livestock export section at the head office of Dalgety New Zealand, Ltd, Wellington, said yesterday was the outcome of a year's negotiations. The pigs, he said, had been chosen from families which had a high recorded growth rate and a high proportion of lean meat. The Mexicans were most anxious to improve the ratio of lean meat to fat of their pigs. This is a trial shipment and will enable the animals to be compared with those from the United States and Australia. It is hoped that the outcome will be the development of a substantial trade between the two countries. Mr Dailey said that his pigs would be joined by four pigs from Australia in Nandi, Last year Mr Dailey exported three mature Landrace boars to Australia.