GENETIC, PHENOTYPIC AND RESIDUAL CORRELATIONS AMONG VARIOUS PERFORMANCE TRAITS IN TEDDY GOATS

Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics,¹Department of Livestock Management, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract   

    The data on pedigree and performance records of 1666 Teddy goats maintained at the Livestock Production research Institute Bahadurnagar (Okara), Pakistan were analyzed in the present study. Birth weight, weaning weight, yearling weight; pre-weaning growth, age at first kidding and number of kids weaned were the traits analyzed. The bivariate model of derivative-free restricted maximum likelihood (DFREML) computer programme was used to estimate the correlations. Significant genetic correlations were found between birth weight and weaning weight (0.69) and weaning weight and yearling weight (0.61) while phenotypic correlations between birth weight and weaning weight (0.65), birth weight and age at first kidding ( -0.61) and weaning weight and yearling weight (0.52) were found significant. The residual correlations indicated a strong negative correlation between birth weight and pre-weaning daily gain and birth weight and age at first kidding.  

Key words: Phenotypic and genetic correlations, Performance traits. Teddy goats