Who tells a tale adds a tail? ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿ’ฌ

swine o'clock Apr 10, 2023

๐Ÿท๐Ÿคฏ Or adds hair?? Believe it or not (this is no fish story), the hair of pigs can tell a story just like any storyteller! Let us explain: we all know that pigs that are more resistant to stress tend to be more resistant to disease and demonstrate better performance. However, while this fact is already used in breeding programs, there’s a new window into resilience to stress in pigs: hair analysis

๐Ÿ”Ž You read that right: rather than measuring stress through blood analysis, a non-invasive and economical approach is to clip and analyze how much stress hormone is ‘locked’ into the hair of a pig. Oh, not to mention that hair grown over a given period will even reliably reflect stress response over that whole period! It tells the whole tale without adding any tails – a pig story, if you will. To learn more about this study, read this.