When I first joined the Livestock Gentec swine team in 2024 as a summer student intern and casual research assistant, I was in my 3rd year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan completing my BSc in Animal Bioscience. At that point, I had little hands-on experience in research, and limited knowledge about the swine sector. I gained so many valuable experiences during my first summer, that it was an easy decision to come back the following year in 2025. The support from the Gentec team was outstanding and I could not have asked for a better research group to work alongside with.
I assisted on the NSERC alliance project “Improving sow lifetime productivity and the number of quality pigs marketed per sow using novel phenotypes and genomics” led by Dr. Michael Dyck and Dr. Graham Plastow that is in collaboration with research partner Hendrix Genetics, Business Unit Swine, in Saskatchewan. The project is looking to identify the genetic and phenotypic relationships between different traits in order to improve sow lifetime productivity, profitability, and sustainability. My responsibilities included data collection and input, along with serving as the key point of communication between the barn and the team back at the University of Alberta.. My first year was focused on intensive data collection across various production phases. A key objective was utilizing gilt heart girth and flank-to-flank measurements to predict body weight through allometric relationships. I also collected weights in piglets at farrowing and at two weeks of age, and assisted with scale weighing during key production transitions for sows, including: training to breeding, gestation to farrowing, and farrowing back to breeding. During my second year, I got to dive more into the analysis side of things, and even conducted my own smaller study evaluating the effects of the number of piglets suckling through lactation and the impacts on subsequent performance. I worked alongside graduate students Sonja Allen and Kayla Patey as they joined me for short periods of time at the barn to work with the staff and see the data directly. I was very fortunate to work under the supervision of Jennifer Patterson who was a great mentor, providing me with invaluable knowledge and skills that I will continue to carry forward in my career.
I am especially grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Banff Pork Seminar. I volunteered in my first year attending this event, getting my real firsthand look into the swine industry and had many great discussions with industry leaders, researchers, and producers. Earlier this year in January, I was given the chance to attend the conference again, this time presenting a poster of my own: “Feed Intake in First Parity Lactation: Impacts on Weight Loss and Subsequent Performance in Swine.” Without the support from Gentec, exposure to this level of research would not have been possible.
My time with the Gentec swine team is what ultimately drove my passion for research and what led me to become a graduate student at the University of Alberta. I joined the Gentec beef team January of this year and began my grad studies under the supervision of Dr. John Basarab, joining the project “Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Canadian Beef Industry through the Development and Adoption of Genomic Tools”. My study will be looking at use of portable NIRS on fresh fecal samples as a proxy measure to predict enteric methane emissions from beef cattle. Our aim is to develop a low-cost measurement tool that will allow for large-scale collection in the industry. I am so grateful for the opportunities and training I have received during my time with Livestock Gentec so far, and I am excited to see what the future brings with my current research. It is evident after working with each of these groups here at Gentec how much pride the group takes in its work and in providing producers with accurate, relevant data that supports informed management decisions.