Association between performance and carcass traits of swine using canonical correlation

Records of 844 animals of a F2 swine population were used to evaluate the association among four performance traits (litter size at birth, teat number, weight at 77 days of age, feed intake and feed:gain ratio from 77 to 105 days of age) and 17 carcass traits (slaughter age, right side carcass weight, carcass length by the Brazilian Carcass Classification Method, backfat thickness at boston shoulder area and the midline, loin depth, heart, spleen, kidney, cold right side carcass, ham, boston Shoulder, picnic shoulder, loin (bone-in), spareribs, jowl and sirloin weights) using canonical correlation analysis. The first canonical correlation (r) was 0.7804, indicating performance and carcass traits were not independent. The first two canonical variable pairs were statistically significant. In the first canonical variable pair, weight at 77 days of age and slaughter age were the absolute predominant traits. These results suggest larger weight at 77 days indicates reduced age at slaughter.