The Semirechensk is a Kazakh

breed A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slig ...

domestic pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

. It was purpose-bred in the twentieth century in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

(now Kazakhstan). The breeding stock was principally

Large White ''Pieris brassicae'', the large white, also called cabbage butterfly, cabbage white, cabbage moth (erroneously), or in India the large cabbage white, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is a close relative of the small white, ''Pieris ra ...

, with some admixture of Siberian

Kemerovo Kemerovo ( rus, Ке́мерово, p=ˈkʲemʲɪrəvə) is an industrial city and the administrative center of Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Iskitimka and Tom Rivers, in the major coal mining region of the Kuznetsk Ba ...

and a small proportion of

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

History

The Semirechensk was the result of a programme of

selective breeding Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant mal ...

conducted between 1947 and 1966 in south-eastern Kazakhstan under the auspices of the Institute of Experimental Biology of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR. The aim was to improve the adaptation of the British

to the extreme climatic conditions of the area, where summer temperatures may be close to 50°C, and winter low temperatures close to -50°C. To this end, Large Whites were to a small extent inter-bred with Asiatic wild boar, and the resulting hybrids cross-bred with

stock from southern Siberia; the final result was at least 75% Large White, with some 6–12% wild boar blood. It had similar production qualities to the Large White, but better adaptation to the climate, a higher resistance to heat, and lower susceptibility to a number of diseases. The breed received official recognition in 1978; it was originally named the Kazakh Hybrid, . By 1980 the

purebred Purebreds are "cultivated varieties" of an animal species achieved through the process of selective breeding. When the lineage of a purebred animal is recorded, that animal is said to be "pedigreed". Purebreds breed true-to-type which means the p ...

stock had reached some 43000 head, with almost 6000 breeding sows and about 1200 active boars. It was reared mainly in the oblasts of Alma-Ata,

Jambul ''Syzygium cumini'', commonly known as Malabar plum, Java plum, black plum, jamun, jaman, jambul, or jambolan, is an evergreen tropical tree in the flowering plant family Myrtaceae, and favored for its fruit, timber, and ornamental value. It is ...

, Karaganda,

Shymkent Shymkent (; Шымкент, Şymkent), known until 1993 as Chimkent ( uz, Çımkent, چىمكېنت; Yañalif: Çimkent ()); russian: Чимкент, translit=Chimkent (), is a city in Kazakhstan. It is near the border with Uzbekistan. It is one ...

and Taldy-Kurgan. Breed numbers later dropped substantially, and in 1990 the total population was reported to be approximately 3400.

References

{{reflist, 45em, refs= Barbara Rischkowsky, Dafydd Pilling (editors) (2007)
List of breeds documented in the Global Databank for Animal Genetic Resources
annex t
''The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture''
Rome: Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. {{ISBN, 9789251057629. Archived 23 June 2020. Valerie Porter, Lawrence Alderson, Stephen J.G. Hall, D. Phillip Sponenberg (2016)
''Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding''
(sixth edition). Wallingford: CABI. {{ISBN, 9781780647944. Breed data sheet: Semirechensk / Kazakhstan (Pig)
Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed May 2021. N.G. Dmitriev, L.K. Ernst (1989)
''Animal genetic resources of the USSR''
FAO animal production and health paper 65. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. {{ISBN, 9251025827. Archived 13 November 2009. Also availabl

archived 29 September 2017. Pig breeds originating in Kazakhstan Animal breeds originating in the Soviet Union