Crossbreeding Between Al-gabali And New Zealand White Rabbits In The North Coast-belt Of The Egyptian Western Desert:

Moustafa Misbah Abd El-aziz

a crossbreeding study was carried out in the rabbitry of maryout experimental station, located 35 km to south-west of alexandria (in a newly reclaimed area), desert research center, ministry of agriculture and land reclamation, egypt. the study lasted for jive consective production years started in september, 1991 and ended in august, 1996. a local breed (gabali, gab) and an exotic one (new zealand white, nzw) were used to study direct heterosis, maternal additive effect and direct additive effect in addition to the effects of some non-genetic factors on some economic traits in rabbits (e.g. doe litter, doe reproductive, milk production, progeny and carcass traits), results obtained could be summarized as follows:i. doe litter traits : actual means of doe litter traits (lsb, lwb, mbwb, ls21, lw21, mbw21, lsw, lww, mbwv, m21, p:n[ and others) indicate that litterperformance of local gab rabbits is, on the average, comparable to that ofnzw rabbits raised in egypt, estimates of cv% of doe litter traits increasedfrom kindling to weaning, year-of-kindling effect was significant (p