Estimation of genetic parameters for four reproduction component traits in two Chinese indigenous pig breeds

Abstract

The reproduction component traits are important components of sow efficiency. The objective of this study was to evaluate the phenotypic and genetic parameters of four reproduction component traits (age at puberty (AP), preweaning number dead (PND), weaning to service interval (WSI), and intra-individual SD in litter size (USDLS)) of sows in two Chinese indigenous pig breeds. Available reproductive records including 22,591 piglets born from 2,054 litters by 574 Jiangquhai sows and 464 Meishan sows were used in this investigation. A set of mixed models and restricted maximum likelihood methodology were used for the multiple trait analyses of these traits. The results showed that the estimates of heritabilities (±standard error) for AP, PND, WSI and IISDLS were 0.40±0.05, 0.06±0.03, 0.20±0.02 and 0.0910.03 in Jiangquhai sows, and 0.35±0.06, 0.05±0.03, 0.18±0.03 and 0.10±0.04 in Meishan sows, respectively. There was moderate genetic correlation between AP and WSI, while there were low genetic correlations between the other pairwise traits. The genetic correlations were positive for most of the pairwise traits, except for the one between AP and IISDLS. The results indicated that all traits except for AP were difficult to make genetic improvement by traditional selection methods due to low heritabilities and the favorable improvement of AP might result in unfavorable changes of IISDLS due to the trend of genetic antagonism.