The inheritance of wool quantity and live weight in the French Angora rabbit

More accurate definition of Angora rabbit breeding objectives has been inve stigated by considering multiple expression of different traits. Data on 96 72 fleece harvests produced by 1343 Angora does which had at least one wool harvest were analysed in order to study genetic variability according to a ge. The animals of the French breed were defleeced and weighed at 8 and 21 weeks of age for the first and second time respectively. Thereafter, does w ere defleeced every 14 weeks and weighed 9 weeks before defleecing. Total f leece weight and live body weight were recorded at each harvest. Direct heritability estimates of total fleece weight were similar accross a ges and ranged from 0.31 to 0.42. A significant maternal heritability was a lso observed at all ages of harvest. Maternal genetic estimates decreased w ith age from 0.44 at the first harvest to 0.10 for an adult harvest. Except for 8 weeks of age, genetic correlations between total fleece weight and l ive weight were generally not significantly different from zero. Genetic co rrelations of total fleece weight between the first and subsequent harvests were low (from 0.22 to 0.39) but genetic correlation estimates between con secutive harvests after the first were high, and ranged from 0.68 to 0.89. The results suggest that the second harvest would be the first good predict or of breeding value for total fleece weight in the adult Angora rabbit.