HERITABILITY AND REPEATABILITY ESTIMATES OF DOE AND LITTER TRAITS IN NIGERIA; DOMESTIC RABBIT
Olayinka A. Ojo, Timothy .R. Fayeye and Ogunbiyi, B.
Date : 2018-04-18 Volume : 10

This study was conducted to estimate genetic parameter of Doe and litter traits in a sub-population of Nigeria domestic rabbit. A total number 30 (thirty) rabbit (24 Does and 6 Bucks) were selected from a population of rabbits maintained at the rabbitry unit of the Teaching and Research Farm, Kogi State University, Anyigba. All the rabbits were housed in cages separately and fed ad libitum with pelleted rations.
In the mating plan, four Does were selected at random and assigned to one Buck each; mating were mostly carried out in the morning and evening. The Doe to be mated were first weighed with a top loader weighing balance in order to know the initial weight of each doe before being carried for mating, the mating was observed and number of time mating took place. A total number of 75 kits were produced from the study. Data were taken on sire effects on litter size (LS), Number of Time Mated (NTM), Doe Weight (DW), Total mortality (TM) and Litter weight (1-4 weeks) and were statistically analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) appropriate for Completely Randomize Design. LS, NTM, TM were significant (P<0.05).DW was not significant (P<0.05), in terms of litter weight, LW1, LW2, LW4 showed significant (P<0.05) but LW3 was not significant. Repeatability and Heritability were estimated from the variance components, the Heritability estimates (Â± SE) for LS, NTM, DW TW, LW1, LW2, LW3 and LW4 varied generally from medium to high (0.04 to 0.60) and the Repeatability estimates (Â±SE) rangedfrom low to high (0.3 to 0.90). Individual selection of sire may lead to fast genetic progress in traits that shows high heritability and or repeatability such as litter weaning weight.
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