Genetic Evaluation of Body Weight Traits in Local Rabbit

Abstract

This study was carried out on seventy-six local rabbit (white, black and white and brown white coat color) to investigate the effect of some non-genetic factors on body weight traits in local rabbits with the genetic evaluation of local rabbits by estimated BLUP value of marketing weight. The overall mean of marketing weight, dressing % and average daily gain arrived 1476.01 ± 33.10 g/rabbit, 51.32 ± 0.84 % and 17.22 ± 0.69 g/day/rabbit, respectively. The black-white coat color rabbits excelled in most of the studied traits, especially in weight at marketing (1615.88 ± 31.96 g/rabbit), daily weight gain (19.90 ± 0.64 g/rabbit) and carcass weight (820.588 ± 15.813 g/rabbit) over the other colors, while the highest dressing ratio was in the white rabbits (52.83 ± 0.67 % /rabbit). A significant and numerical superiority of male rabbits over female in the traits under study. A significant positive correlation was recorded among most traits under study. The BLUP values for rabbit ranged from -700 to 100 g/rabbit. These result indicated that there are big genetic variations in this population of local rabbit. It indicates that selection can play a major role in improving body weight traits in local rabbit.