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 proje ct in Masaka-Kigali during 1989 to 1992. All does were artificially in seminated with semen from selected Alpine bucks from France. Age of do es affected significantly (P < 0.05) rates of fertility, abortion and litter size, percent of dead kids at birth. It also affected significa ntly (P < 0.05) number of females born alive (NFBA), number of kids al ive (NKA) and number of kids born (NKB). Year of kidding affected sign ificantly (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 correlatio n coefficients between NKA, NKB and index of fertility were also posit ive (P < 0.05). The estimates of heritability of reproductive traits s tudied were low and ranged between 0.02 and 0.06.