Constitution and evaluation of a Long-lived — Productive rabbit line

¹ Departamento de Producción Animal, Universidad de León, León, 24071, Spain; Animal and Dairy Science Department, University of Georgia, Athens, 30602
² Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, 46022, Spain

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: juansan{at}unileon.es.

	Abstract

An evaluation of a new maternal line (LP) of rabbits was carried out. This new line was founded following a scheme similar to that applied in the selection for hyper-prolificacy in rabbits or pigs. In this case, the selection criteria were hyper-longevity and an independent culling level near the average for prolificacy. Evaluation was carried out by the comparison of reproductive and longevity performance of the LP line with another maternal line recognized for good reproductive performance and standard longevity (V line). The results indicate the LP line could be a valuable resource to be included in the current 3-way cross schema used in rabbit production, because females show better survival ability and nearly the same prolificacy as the well reputed V line. A V doe was 1.3 times more likely to leave the herd than an LP doe, and the probability of the differences in prolificacy between lines being greater than 0 was not extreme, no more than 0.22. Differences in relative performance of the lines were observed across farms for prolificacy, longevity, cumulative production, and fertility; however, based on DIC results, the data only supported the hypothesis of these differences being generated under genotype by environment (GxE) interaction for prolificacy traits. The longer productive life of LP females could partially be understood as an indication of success of the selection procedure during the foundation of this line.

Key Words: constitution of lines, cumulative production, fertility, longevity, prolificacy, rabbit breeding