Heritability estimates for body weight in pure and crossbred Nigerian goats

Abstract

Forty does and eight bucks of West African Dwarf (WAD) and Red Sokoto goats were mated to produce pure and reciprocal crossbreds (WADxRSG, RSGxWAD) kids whose records were used to estimate heritability of body weight at birth, weaning and yearling stages. Heritability was estimated using variance components due to sire, dam and combine sire-dam effect. Crossbred WADxRSG was not significantly different (p>0.05) in birth weight from the purebred WAD (1.81 vs. 1.75 kg). Significantly (p<0.05) positive effect of crossbreeding was observed in the yearling weights of crossbreds. Estimates of heritability for weaning weight obtained for the purebreds (WAD and RSG) and WADxSRG cross were generally high (over 60%). Dams’ component heritability estimates were generally low (0.02 – 0.27) in RSGxWAD cross. Birth weight heritability estimates were low in pure WAD. Heritability estimates of yearling weight ranged from medium to high levels for all the methods of estimation except the dams’ components of the crossbreds. The results obtained in this study suggests that heritability estimates of body at different stages of growth is largely influenced by breeding group but sire components heritability should be given higher preference for genetic improvement of yearling weight of WAD and SRG.