The pigs were born and raised
at Agrifood Research Finland's experimental farm in Hyvinkää. They
were born to a total of 81 litters thatwere produced by 50 Finnish Landrace×Finnish
Yorkshire crossbred sows. The number of litter per sire
breed ranged from 20 to 21 and the number of sires per breed from
14 to 17. The pigs were housed in pens of two to thirteen animals during
the weaner period, in pens of four animals during the grower and finisher
periods and fed using the same multi-phase feeding regime until
an average live weight of 115 kg. The piglets had an ad libitum access
to a pelleted starter diet (9.5 MJ NE and 9.7 g apparent ileal digestible
(AID) lysine per kg) from 14 days of age until 18 days after weaning
and thereafter to a pelleted weaner diet (9.3 MJ NE/kg and 9.5 g AID
lysine/kg) until they were ca 25 kg body weight and were moved to
the fattening unit. There the pigs received a grower diet (8.9 MJ NE/kg
and 9.1 g AID lysine/kg) for 5 weeks, early-finisher diet (8.84 MJ
NE/kg and 6.7 g AID lysine/kg) for 3 weeks and late finishing diet
(8.8 MJ NE/kg and AID lysine 5.7 g/kg) until they reached 115 kg body
weight and were slaughtered.