TESTED BOAR SALE HELD AT UNIVERSITY

Thirty-eight of 49 boars offered for sale sold at an average price of $334 per boar at Southeast Missouri State University's Department of Agriculture and The Southeast Swine Improvement Association's 29th performance tested boar sale recently.

The sale was held at the Southeast Missouri State University Farm Swine Test Station.

The next performance tested boar sale is scheduled for July.

The fastest gaining boar and the highest selling was a Duroc bred by Niemeyer Brothers of Bowling Green, Mo. The boar, sold for $625 to Ken Westrich of Scott City. The board had gained 2.84 pounds a day and had a pen feed efficiency of 2.08 pounds.

Performance testing is a process by which boars are measured for their genetic potential for growth over a specified period of time. Pen feed efficiency is the number of pounds of feed needed to gain a certain number of pounds.

Hog producers living within 50 miles of the University bought 76 percent of the boars. Twenty-five hog producers made purchases at the sale, seven of whom were newcustomers, said William Ellis, Swine Test Station manager and associate professor of agriculture at Southeast.

In his pre-sale welcome, Ellis said the boars "were excellent genetically for growth back fat thickness and feed efficiency" and had been healthy throughout the test.

Growth back fat thickness is the thickness of a boar's back fat. The test covered the period of September through November, Ellis said, a period in which the weather remained relatively mild, thus producing excellent conditions for growth.

"The sale offering was full of rugged, long, lean and thick free-moving boars," he said.