Genetic parameters for litter weight, average daily gain and thigh muscle volume measured by in vivo Computer Tomography technique in Pannon White rabbits

Application possibilities of selection indices in Pannon White rabbits’ breeding programme

“…The estimated heritability for LW21 was low. The heritability of litter traits, such as LW21 were comparable with the previous studies conducted at the Kaposvar University (Gyovai et al 2012;Nagy et al 2013) where the heritability for LW21 varied between 0.10 and 0.17. It is also in accordance with the heritability measured by Lukefahr and Hamilton (1997) and Al-Saef et al (2008) where it ranged between 0.02 and 0.17, which shows that the non-genetic and environmental factors represent the major source of the trait.…”

“…According to this sorting system, after the CT examinations maximum two female and one male offspring went for further breeding from one sire. The consequences of the different selection strategies can be originated from the negative correlation between LW21 and TMV, which was reported in our study (Table 4) and by Gyovai et al (2012). Despite of the small reduction of the LW21, the economic efficiency of the selection process can be increased by using indexing LW21 and TMV in the pre-selection stage, since the economic importance of the LW21 is much lower than that of TMV, as reported previously by Szendr} o et al (2016).…”

“…Contrary to the favourable results, Szendr} o et al (2010) and Gyovai et al (2012) pointed out that TMV has a negative correlation with the LW21 (from À0.37 to À0.7). As a result, individuals with the best TMV may not have the best LW21 in the first step of selection.…”

“…On the contrary, the common environmental effect had the same magnitude as the additive genetic effect. Rastogi et al (2000), Gyovai et al (2008Gyovai et al ( , 2012 and Al-Saef et al (2008) reported also low magnitude for the permanent environmental effect for litter weight with repeatability animal models.…”

“…Application of selection indices may be a good solution to the problem mentioned by Gyovai et al (2012), since profitability is an appropriate parameter to express the importance of the traits in the final evaluation. TMV is also an interesting parameter in an economic point of view, due to its great amount of muscle it gives more profit with the same input.…”