ESTIMATION OF GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC PARAMETERS OF SOME REPRODUCTIVE TRAITS OF AFRICAN COMMON GOATS IN RWANDA

Records of 2239 African Common does were collected in the French project in Masaka-Kigali during 1989 to 1992. All does were artificially inseminated with semen from selected Alpine bucks from France. Age of does affected significantly (P < 0.05) rates of fertility, abortion and litter size, percent of dead kids at birth. It also affected significantly (P < 0.05) number of females born alive (NFBA), number of kids alive (NKA) and number of kids born (NKB). Year of kidding affected significantly (P < 0.05) NFBA, NKA and NKB, while there was no significant (P > 0.05) effect of the interaction (age of does x year of kidding). All phenotypic correlations between reproductive traits studied were significantly (P < 0.01) high and positive, and the genetic correlation coefficients between NKA, NKB and index of fertility were also positive (P < 0.05). The estimates of heritability of reproductive traits studied were low and ranged between 0.02 and 0.06.