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Certified pre-owned pigs?
A registration paper can help you sell your hogs and your reputation.
By K.C. Keffer
Imagine taking a drive in the city. Everywhere you look, used-car dealers state they will sell you the best vehicle.
Some establishments you pass are run down, and their cars are battered. But at the next intersection, you see a well-kept, well-lit car dealership.
It seems like a mirage – they are selling certified used cars.
Where would you purchase your next car? Would you go to the man in the polyester suit with his sputtering used automobiles, or would you go to the dealer who will provide you with a certificate stating its past?
A registered purebred animal is the livestock industry’s equivalent to a certified pre-owned automobile. Pedigrees have long been recognized as a way of tracking known bloodlines, certifying the ancestry of an animal.
Many experts agree – pedigrees enable you to trace the purity of the breeding behind an animal, predict the future of purebred livestock, market your animals, and enhance your trustworthiness.
“Before performance records were developed, the only guarantee that an animal would pass along its genetic traits was through its pedigree,” says Craig Huffhines, president of the National Pedigreed Livestock Council (NPLC).
“Today, the pedigree is used in a much more dynamic way, because it ties individual animals together for the purpose of generating breeding values for economically relevant traits,” Huffhines says.
Darrell Anderson, NSR Chief Executive Officer and past president of the NPLC, agrees with Huffhines.
“The number-one stated purpose and goal of the National Swine Registry (NSR) is to preserve ancestry by pedigree and maintain breed purity,” he says.
“The number-two goal of the NSR is to assist all members in adding value to purebred genetics,” Anderson adds.
Commit to the future. Pedigrees can be viewed as a long-term commitment to predict and improve the future of domesticated animals.
Pedigrees have become tools that provide information needed to predict the performance of offspring from superior sires and dams, according to the Beef Improvement Federation.
Without this indispensable tool, wise breeders would be hard pressed to continue to make sound breeding decisions, while having the conviction to stand behind their product when it is marketed.
“Without the pedigree, there is no linkage to past performance and therefore, no reliability to what genetic potential an animal possesses,” Huffhines says.
The NPLC believes that a pedigree will dramatically increase a producer’s chance to use proven genetics when making selection decisions.
Every producer, to continually produce better hogs, must pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of their hogs within each stage of production.
To eliminate the weaknesses, producers should use strategic and tactical planning and implement standards to be upheld within their herd, according to the National Swine Improvement Federation.
With inaccurate recorded information, some producers do not see the continual change for which they strive. Each sire must be superior to the last one used.
Ease of use. A pedigree paper, which puts ancestral information into a logical format, is one of the main ways to evaluate a superior boar to utilize in your herd.
A general pedigree features the animal’s name, sire, dam, date of birth, owner, registration number, sex and identification number.
A NSR performance pedigree lists this information, along with an EPD for number born alive (NBA), 21-day litter weight (LWT), backfat (BF) and pounds of lean.
The NSR believes these papers are efficient and organized, and they help producers make sound decisions.
Seeing performance information, breeders often benefit from pedigrees, combined with sire summaries, to create genetically superior lines of breeding.
A true believer. Bill Funderburg of Greenville, Ohio, has been raising purebred hogs since 1951, registering every litter.
His Twin Pine Farms was the leading register of purebred Yorkshires in the 1970s and 1980s.
Funderburg fears that some young breeders could be looking for a quick genetic fix, without using education and pedigrees to make decisions.
“Hogs change in cycles,” he says. “If you know what a pedigree has done for a herd, you can emphasize change in troubled times.”
He advises young people to make real-world breeding decisions, not ones based strictly on hearsay or popular boars.
“They have to go home and live with their decisions,” Funderburg says. “A pedigree is a moral obligation.”
A pedigree is more than a mere piece of paper – it is the reflection of a breeder and the recorder of the data.
Richard Spader, former executive vice president of the American Angus Association, addressed this in his editorial in the April 2001issue of Angus Journal.
Spader said he believed a registration paper was like a warranty tag on a bag of seed corn. It reminds buyers that they have purchased a reputable, well-documented product with superior genetics.
Registering your hogs is a surefire way to protect the past, the present and the future of your operation and the breed.
Ed Roberts, recently retired CEO of the American Paint Horse Association, is quoted in the Paint Horse Journal as saying a pedigree is a breeder’s warranty on a seedstock product.
“Without the warranty, a non-registered animal is just another commercial animal,” Roberts says.
Pedigrees for profits. It is known that every species of domesticated animals has specific traits that are unique to them. That equates to economic value.
Pedigrees are a producer’s tool to visualize the traits of their future herd, while predicting their economic profit.
Hilton M. Briggs, author of Modern Breeds of Livestock , believed that without a vision, a producer could not assume that profits would roll in.
If there are differences in the actual hog and the recorded information, the end result could be different from what the producer projected.
Briggs emphasized that raising purebred livestock should not strictly be a hobby.
It should be a business, in which you strive to create a better product to create greater satisfaction and a higher financial return.
You can differentiate your program from others by offering buyers something that is unique –a highly predictable, performance-backed registration certificate.
Doug Stewart of Waverly, Iowa, is a third-generation Duroc producer who has seen the benefits of a registration paper in international trade.
In the past year, the Stewarts have exported purebred Durocs to 10 different countries, including China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan.
“If they are taking the time to come to me, I am willing to take the time to register my hogs to provide my customers with performance pedigrees,” Stewart says.
Every country has different duty regulations, says Tony Clayton, NSR International Marketing Director.
For example, any pigs exported to Korea must have a registration certificate, and boars must also have performance certificates.
“This regulation is in place because they only allow pigs with certain performance levels to enter the national herd and record-keeping system,” he says.
Many international buyers use registration papers to select hogs to design their programs.
Clayton believes that the growing international understanding of the STAGES program is increasing the buyer’s demand for registration papers.
Without the certificate stating its past, a pre-owned automobile just becomes another used car.
Without a set of registration papers, a purebred animal can easily become just another commercial animal.
Common myths and misconceptions about NSR pedigrees
Myth: “Registering my hogs takes too much time.”
Fact: The NSR offers many options to help you get through the registration process quickly and easily.
First, a litter can be registered on the NSR’s official Web site. All that you need to log in: the owner’s herd mark and breeder number, and your user name and password. Then just follow the simple directions.
You can also register by calling the NSR office at (765)463-3594, and talking to the respective breed official. Just give your litter information over the phone, and your information will be processed in the same day.
Myth: “It costs too much to register an entire litter.”
Fact: The NSR offers competitive member and non-member rates on all litters and all eligible pigs.
If a litter is 90 days of age or younger, members are only charged $10 to register all of the pigs, whether it’s one or 10. The non-member rate for the same group is $24. Pigs that are over 90 days old cost members $24 to register. For non-members, the rate is $48.
Compare for yourself. The listing below gives the cost to register through other breed registries.
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How does the NSR compare?
Registration fees for other breed associations
American Angus Association
Birth to 4 months $7
4-10 months $9
10-12 months $14
Over 12 months $27
American Hereford Association
Calves up to 4 months of age $10
Calves 4-8 months $15
Calves 8-12 months $20
Calves 12-24 months $50
Calves over 24 months $100
American Quarter Horse Association
Birth-7 months $25 for member
$55 for non-member
7-12 months $50 for member
$80 for non-member
12-24 months $100 for member
$130 for non-member
24-36 months $250 for member
$280 for non-member
36-48 months $500 for member
$530 for non-member
After 48 months $1,000 for member
$1,030 for non-member
Alpaca Registry
Under 12 months
If owner of the dam registers animals: $15
If non-owner of the dam registers: $25
Over 12 months $45
American Kennel Club
0-12 months
Registration only $15
Registration and pedigree $32
12-23 months
Registration only $50
Registration and pedigree $67
Over 24 months
Registration only $80
Registration and pedigree $97
Appaloosa Horse Club
Under 6 months: member $30
Non-member $90
7-12 months: members $50
Non-members $110
13-24 months: member $100
Non-member $210
25-36 months: member $200
Non-member $410
Over 36 months: members $250
Non-members $510
