CT technology has the unique ability to measure body composition
in the live animals. Dissection methods of pigs for
breeding purpose are often based on the composition of only
a few cuts and ultrasound measurements recording leanness
and muscle depth only at a few positions. Hence, the CT data
provide more knowledge about the actual content of lean
muscle in a carcass. This yields a larger variation in lean meat
content and different genetic correlations to several traits.
The genetic parameters of the growth of different tissues
measured with CT in this study provide new understanding
of traditional slaughter pig efficiency traits, such as the antagonistic
relationship between LMP and ADG2 in modern pigs.
MG seems to be a suitable trait for carcass quality and
slaughter pig efficiency, in addition to being a biologically
robust trait. MG is favourably correlated with FG, which
simplifies the breeding. In cases in which LMP, ADG1 and
ADG2 are optimally combined in a total merit index, the
results are almost the same as those in the selection for MG.