The first 237 young boars arrived at the new Delta Norway test station in mid-August. In the coming weeks, more animals will follow. The pigs loved the automatic bedding allocation and immediately felt at home, thanks to the warm welcome from station leader Annette Westad Karterud and her team.
The young boars came from 32 herds in Norway and were first quarantined for three weeks. They all have the high health status SPF and are completely free of APP. Testing and feed intake recording began immediately after the boars arrived. After ten weeks at the test station, the first boars will be CT scanned and available for export to customers worldwide.
Delta Norway is the latest new boar testing location of Topigs Norsvin and has an annual test capacity of 5,000 young boars from the Norsvin Landrace and TN Duroc lines. Equipped with new technical solutions and infrastructure for large-scale data capture, it will significantly boost genetic progress. Besides individual feed intake registration and performance measurements, the extensive use of sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence will make it possible to track pigs continuously and register fluctuations in their environment and behavior.