DIRECT AND MATERNAL GENETIC COMPONENTS OF VARIANCE FOR GROWTH TRAITS IN NILAGIRI AND SANDYNO SHEEP OF SOUTH INDIA
Loading...
Date
2015-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Indian Society for Sheep and Goat Production and Utilization
Abstract
The Nilagiri sheep is known for its prolificacy and adaptability to high altitudes of the Nilgiri
hills. This breed was crossed with exotic sheep such as Rambouillet and Merino to develop a new
synthetic sheep called Sandyno at Sheep Breeding Research Station, Sandynallah (Tamil Nadu).
Both these breeds have been maintained as closed flocks in this station and growth data from
1992 to 2011 were utilized to estimate direct and maternal genetic (co)variance components for
various growth traits viz., weight at birth (BW), 3 (3W), 6 (6W), 9 (9W), 12 (12W) and 18 (18W)
months of age.An animal model including maternal effects was used to obtain restricted maximum
likelihood estimates of (co)variances. The h values for BW, 3W, 6W, 9W, 12W and 18W were
0.140, 0.130, 0.074, 0.168, 0.129 and 0.166, respectively in Nilagiri sheep and 0.147, 0.114,
0.098, 0.141, 0.144 and 0.115 in Sandyno sheep. In Nilagiri sheep, maternal influence was
significant (P<0.05) forBW, 3W, 6W and 9W and the maternal heritability values for the traits were
0.211, 0.050, 0.126 and 0.098, respectively. In Sandyno sheep, the maternal heritability values
were significant (P<0.05) for BW, 3W, 6W, 9W and 18W with values of 0.285, 0.035, 0.054, 0.058
and 0.110, respectively.
Description
TNV_IJSR_2015_21(2)204-210
Keywords
Veterinary Science