Genetic parameters for milk yield and litter size in Boutsico dairy sheep

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Abstract
Lactation and litter size records (n = 2553) of Boutsico dairy sheep were used to estimate direct additive, maternal genetic, maternal and animal's permanent environmental variance components for milk yield and litter size by restricted maximum likelihood under a repeated records animal model. Raw milk yield data were transformed by log and Box–Cox (BC) transformations. Heritability estimates of direct additive effects were between 0.21 and 0.30, 0.18 and 0.24 and 0.21 and 0.27 for untransformed, log transformed and BC transformed data, respectively. Only maternal and animal's environmental effects were important for milk yield. Direct-maternal genetic covariance did not significantly (P > 0.05) influence milk yield. Repeatability for milk yield ranged from 0.32 to 0.38. Only additive genetic effects were important for litter size. Heritability and repeatability for litter size were 0.07 and 0.11, respectively. Genetic and phenotypic correlations between yield and litter size were 0.13 and 0.19, respectively. Key words: Sheep, milk yield, litter size, heritability, correlation

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