Genetic analysis of growth pattern in New Zealand White rabbit fed commercial grower mash

Abstract

Correlation coefficients of body weight at different ages were examined in this study. A total of forty-eight New Zealand White rabbit kittens were used for the genetic parameter estimation study. The rabbits were housed in wooden cages with wire mesh floor at four rabbits per cage and were fed ad libitum, solely on the commercial grower mash and fresh water. Individual weekly body weight of the rabbits was taken for 12 weeks using a sensitive scale with an accuracy of 0.1g. Heritability, genetic, phenotypic and environmental correlation coefficients of the body weight at different ages were estimated using the Restricted Maximum Likelihood (ReML) approach. The heritability estimates obtained ranged from moderate to low with higher estimates from the sire model. Heritability was highest at pre-weaning and few weeks post-weaning. The genetic, phenotypic and environmental correlations for weekly body weights showed positivity and ranged between 0.30 to 0.97, 0.79 to 0.99 and 0.33 to 0.99 respectively. The correlation coefficients estimates were highest at pre-weaning ages and later showed a decreasing trend at post-weaning from the 7th week. This implies that animal model selection can be practiced at the post-weaning age to reduce genetic-environmental interplay in the selection process.

Keywords: Rabbit, New Zealand White, heritability, genetic correlation, body weight