Heritability Estimates of Reproductive Traits in Crossbred Pigs

Records on reproductive traits of pigs pertaining to 541 crossbreds, comprising 308 half-bred inter se (½ Hampshire × ½ Local) and 233 graded inter se (¾ Hampshire × ¼ Local), maintained at ICAR Mega Seed Project (MSP) and All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on pigs, Assam Agricultural University, Khanapara for the period from 2002 to 2013 constituted the materials for the present investigation. The heritability estimates were obtained by paternal halfsib correlation method using sire component of variance. The heritability estimates of age at sexual maturity, age at first conception, age at first farrowing, litter size at birth and litter size at weaning, litter weight at birth and litter weight at weaning were 0.150 ± 0.301, 0.274 ± 0.318, 0.361 ± 0.329, 0.224 ± 0.238, 0.122 ± 0.297, 0.270±0.247, 0.001±0.278 and 0.891±0.383, respectively in half-bred inter se pigs and 0.671 ± 0.445, 0.830 ± 0.468, 0.848 ± 0.471, 0.371 ± 0.185, 0.367 ± 0.388, 0.134 ± 0.268, 0.148 ± 0.502 and 0.617 ± 0.522 in graded inter se pigs, respectively.