Factors affecting reproductive performance of female rabbits - 1987
Journal of Applied Rabbit Research, USA (This Journal is currently named World Rabbit Science). • 1987
Publication Information
Authors
Khalil M.H., Mansour Hussien
Keywords
Female rabbits, reproductive performance, repeatability
Journal
Journal of Applied Rabbit Research, USA (This Journal is currently named World Rabbit Science).
Publisher
American Rabbit Science Association
Volume
10
Issue
3
Pages
140-145
publication.type
International
Paper Link
Open Link
Supplementary Materials
Not Available
Abstract
Data on reproductive performance of 288 doe rabbits were analyzed to study the effects of month and year of kindling, parity, mating buck and does within buck. Measurements of reproductive performance were: number of services per conception (NSC), gestation length (GL), litter size and weight at birth and at weaning (BLS, BLWT, WLS and WEWT, respectively) and mortality (MW) and sex ratio at weaning (WSR). The repeatability of these traits was estimated by mixed model analysis. Parity had no significant effect on the traits studied except for GL and NSC where the effect was significant. Most of the reproductive traits were significantly affected by year and month of kindling. Mating buck was found to be an important source of variation for NSC, BLWT, WEWT, GL and WLS. Due to low repeatabilities, with estimates ranging from 0.0 to 0.12, all reproductive traits should be considered when evaluating doe records for selection purposes.
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