Striking Features Of National Bacon Pig Championship

Northern Advocate, 9 July 1938, Page 13

Striking Features Of National Bacon Pig Championship

Pig Club Section

PENDING a detailed examination of Ihe figures relating to the National Bacon Pig Championship. an examination which il is intended both to do locally and also to submit to Dr. Hammond, of Cambridge. for his independent study and advice, there scorn to be one or two matters of striking interest appearing on the face of the results. The method adopted in this competition ,s She first organised attempt in New Zealand to synchronise carcase requirements with type in the live animal. The first essential of value in a pig is the demand of the consumer for the meat, and that moat requirement is described in detail in the system of judging of the carcase as adopted at this Exhibition, A carcase scoring full points would represent the ideal requirement of the consumer, and any carcase scoring over half marks would be considered quite a good one. The next, and the most difficult problem of all, is, what does the pig that gives this ideal carcase lock like alive on the hoof, Ideal and TheorySo far, these competitions have shown that the pig that men of ex-

perience in. the commercial pig world would choose as the ideal do not come up to expectations as carcases. The judgment on the hoof is rarely supported by the subsequent carcase examination. This is so far so that some countries have adopted a system of classifying into first, second and third grades on the hoof, and are contented if a subsequent detailed examination places the carcases, with a small percentage of error, in similar classes. It will readily be realised, however, that some system of greater accuracy than that would be welcomed by farmers, and the efforts of those behind this competition are being directed to ascertaining the relationship of outward live appearance to inward carcase quality.

Length of Carcase. It has been found that the length of the carcase from H bone to first rib, . or in other words the length of the , bacon side, is 77 per cent, of the length of the live pig from between the ears to the root of the tail The ’ live length would have to be taken while the pigs were feeding at the trough and arc thus fully extended lengthwise. The persistency of this percentage in the pigs in the competition was remarkable, and it could be said with authority that, given normally good pigs, this percentage could be taken as a standard. Further experiments will be made to check this figure as opportunity occurs, for it is of extreme value when the length of the carcase is such an important consideration. Meat anil Fat. The next two factors of importance are, what amount, respectively of meal and fat does the carcase carry, In this question lies the main difficulty, and is the rock on which the ‘hoof judges come to grief. Pigs may be roughly classified into those with a round barrel, those with a small amount of flatness or width across the back and thereafter slab or well let down sides, and. those with ridgy backs and slab sides. Roundness of barrel has been associated by farmers with good spring of rib, but this association was not confirmed by the of carcases made at the Exhibition. Actually, there did not / seem to be very much difference m the rib spring of any of the pigs. The i roundness of barrel was invariably i produced by a thick layer of fat lying j over the rib, and the thickness of this j fat extended up and over the back in j most instances. It seemed that it was j the mode in which the pig laid on fat j that produced the difference between j the round and slab sided pig. i Measurements. j Measurements taken synthetically J across the back seemed to show that a j span of about five or six inches across ■ the back, followed by an increasingly j rapid slope to produce a slab side at i the flank and for seme distance forj ward from it, gave a minimum of fat and a maximum of meat. A certain amount of width . transversely across the back is apparently quite essential to give room for the development of a good dorsal muscle or eye ef meat. Another Way, • One may perhaps put the matter ! better the reverse way by stating that ! a good development of meat on the | back of a pig causes the back to be I wide transversely. If the side then ; falls away rapidly to give the type of I pig that is well let down at the flank I and is not unduly round in the barrel. ! a maximum of meat plus a minimum jof fat will probably result. The more ' one considers this matter, the move i reasonable it appears that this should 1 bo the case. 1 Ridge Back Pig. i The rangy or ridge back pig has. no ■ room for the development , of back I muscle, or, reversing this statement : again, the pig with poor muscular clej velopment on the back is naturally a I razor backed type It is certainly lean

By W. A. Beattie

in the sense that it has but little fat, but it is defective in that it lias not the quantity of lean or muscle. Loan meat and muscle are, of course, the same thing. 11 is rather confusing In farmers to say that the market requires a lean pig. It is much more accurate to say that the market requires plenty or lean meat or. a pig. That is not quite the same tiling, and had it been made clear in the first instance, a great deal of confusion and loss might have been avoided. A Fortunate Fact. It is rather fortunate that the pig which measures up to those needs, that is, a pig with plenty of muscular development or the back indicated by breadth there and a clear cutting away of a fairly flat side, is a good healthy typo of pig to own and breed from. Strength on the back usually accompanies width across the chest and strength throughout the organs. There is no place for the rangy or ridgy-backed pig. Such a pig not only lias no place to develop his meat, but also is usually weak in constitution and most difficult to give the required finish.

Summing Up. It would appear therefore from the somewhat cursory examination so far made that the pig oblong in crosssection is the desirable type, whereas that of the inverted V type or of the circular cross-section type is undesirable. It should prove exceptionally interesting to farmers to follow this up with a view to verifying the results. We now feel, as a result of this competition, that we at last have something very definite to look for in the live pig, something more than we ever looked for previously, and if we follow this line of investigation it seems highly probable that we should get most valuable results. The feeling that at last we may be approaching a solution of that great difficulty—the correlating of hoof and carcase

judging, makes one extremely impatient, and hoping that the time will soon be here when the next Stock Show and subsequent carcase competition will be upon us so that we can test out thoroughly the theories advanced. It is most sincerely to be

hoped that the numbers of pigs entered next time will be vastly in excess f> f those entered tin's time, so that the results may be tested over a much greater number of pips. Every farmev in Northland who enters a pig will be helping the most progressive movement that the industry has yet experienced.