Abstract
Data from fifty-four pigs: twenty-five Duroc, twenty-one Large White and eight crosses of Duroc and Large White (Hybrid) were used to quantify and mathematically describe the performance traits of pigs. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of genotype, sex and their interaction on the performance characteristics of three pig genotypes. The pigs were 30 kg of body weight and 70 days of age at the beginning of the study. Records for body weight (BW), body length (BL), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), rump and back fat thickness, trunk length(TRL), height at withers (HW), chest girth (CG),tail length (TL), shoulder to tail length (STL) were used for the analysis. The results of the least squares means analysis on the performance traits showed that genotype and sex were important sources of variation for traits such as feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), rump and back fat thickness. Also, the linear body traits namely; body weight (BW), body length (BL), trunk length (TRL), height at withers (HW), chest girth (CG), tail length(TL) and shoulder to tail length (STL) were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by genotype and sex. The male sex and the hybrid had better performance traits at various stages. Key words: Pig, genotype, sex, hybrid, duroc, Large White.  
Highlights
Genotype, sex and genotype-sex interaction (G×S) is increasingly important, because breeding programs depends on the selection of good genotype and the sex through which the effort will be concentrated for the propagation of the generation
The estimated least-squares means of performance characteristics and linear body measurements by genotype and sex for days 35 and 56 of the experiment are presented in Tables 2 to 6
The Hybrid showed the best performance among the three genotypes for body weight, feed intake, feed and rump depth with the following means 44.11±1.83 kg, 12.78±0.46 kg and 52.28±2.10 cm
Summary
Sex and genotype-sex interaction (G×S) is increasingly important, because breeding programs depends on the selection of good genotype and the sex through which the effort will be concentrated for the propagation of the generation. The main objective of the production of slaughter pigs is undoubtedly profit which is a function of the whole complex of characters, that is, qualities characterizing reproduction and production traits. Production traits in farm animals are the resultant of an additive effect of the genes. Production traits may be improved both by genetic and non-genetic measures (Sprysl et al, 2005). Selection is performed in purebred lines and the final product is a crossbred animal; there is an anticipated benefit of using crossbred information for estimating breeding values of purebred for crossbred performance (Hidalgo et al, 2015; Lopes et al, 2017)
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