Hasan Baneh, Mohammad Rokouei, Farhad Ghafouri Kesbi, Ayoob Veysi, and Shahram Niknafs

pp. 131 - 135

Abstract

The present study was carried out to estimate the genetic and phenotypic parameters for growth traits in Ghezel sheep,
using pedigree information and body weight records which collected from 2000 to 2009 at Ghezel Sheep Breeding Station.
Traits of interest were birth weight (BW, n=2,073), weaning weight (WW, n=1,663) and six-month old weight (6MW, n=1,315).
The environmental factors were studied using GLM procedure in SAS software. (Co) variance components estimated based
on multivariate animal model by REML method, using DMU-package. All traits were significantly influenced by birth year,
lamb’s sex, type of birth and dam age (p<0.01). Heritability estimates for BW, WW and 6MW were 0.16±0.05, 0.24±0.06 and
0.35±0.07, respectively. All genetic correlations between traits were estimated positive and ranged from 0.57 (BW-6MW) to
0.97 (WW-6MW). The phenotypic correlations among all traits were also positive. The results of this study indicate that
because of high genetic correlation between traits, selection for each of these traits may result in improvement in other traits
as well.