A programme of selection for meat rabbits was carried out in Egypt and Saudi Arabia where three Egyptian and one Saudi Arabian research centres are involved, each of them having the task to develop two lines of rabbits. The set of lines in the programme are a control V line, four replicated Spanish V line and three synthetics between the V line ans a local breed. The local breeds used in synthetics were Baladi Red and Sinai Gabali in Egypt and Saudi Gabali in Saudi Arabia. Line V was replicated in four different locations, three in Egypt (Alexandria, Animal Production Research Institute, and Moshtohor) and one in Saudi Arabia (King Saud University). The procedure used to form the synthetics was to cross bucks of the local breed with does of V line to get the F1 cross and does and bucks of F1 cross were mated to get F2, then inter-se mating was practiced to get F3. The lines are being selected by a BLUP methodology, under different local conditions, following different criteria of selection, depending on the Centres, aiming in all cases to develop maternal lines, giving special consideration to milk production, and growth after weaning, in addition to litter size. Data of the last year of the project in each location were only used for describing the performances obtained. The current performances of the synthesized lines in different locations are given, in order to
get a general idea for their expected productivity and the importance of factors, other than the genetic ones, affecting the productivity. These performances verified that the most stable and convenient trait in all lines is referring to the prolificacy, which have been around 8.5 total born and
around 8 born alive per litter. Post-weaning daily gains were also convenient and ranged from 19 to 29.4 g/d in the locations studied. This is the largest programme with the most comprehensive efforts executed in countries of hot climate to develop new lines of meat rabbits where heat stress is considered as one of the most important limiting factors to raise meat rabbits. Finally, consolidation of the programme to develop an organisation to diffuse pure and crossbred animals for the farmers are important targets to be discussed.
|
