Heritability and genetic trends of number of kits born alive in a synthetic maternal rabbit line

Heritability and genetic trends for number of kits born alive in a synthetic maternal rabbit line were estimated in this study. The data were collected from 1999 to 2007 on 5640 kindlings of 1425 does. The total number of animals in the pedigree was 2576. The mean number of kits born alive was 8.42 with a standard deviation of 2.87. Genetic parameters and breeding values were estimated using the VCE-5 and PEST software based on the REML and BLUP methods using a repeatability animal model. For litter size, the first, second and third parities were treated as repeated trait, while the fourth and further parities were pooled and considered as same repetition. The estimated heritability and the repeatability for number of kits born alive were low (0.05 and 0.14). The observed selection response was about 0.04 rabbits/year.