The goal of the swine industry must be the economical production of high quality, lean pork. The traits that are most economically important to the commercial swine industry are sow productivity, growth rate, feed conversion, lean percentage, and meat quality. Nonetheless, both lean growth and LTFC serve as important tools for characterizing pig genotypes. Both initial and final lean weights are determined most accurately by carcass dissection and chemical analysis.
Chemical analysis is necessary to standardize the fat content of the lean.
Carcass dissection is extremely expensive and thus limited in its use. A less costly approach to estimate ADLG is to predict initial and final weights of lean using traits that can be more easily measured on the live animal or carcass. This equation assumes that there is little variation in lean percentage of 40-60 lb. feeder pigs. Therefore, there is indeed some variation in lean percentage of 40-60 lb. feeder pigs, but any error associated with using the above equation for predicting initial weight of lean is not likely to affect ADLG dramatically. Final weight of lean can be predicted using either live animal or carcass traits.