The effect of inbreeding on birth weight of Saanen goat kids

Sa？etak The study aimed to examine the effect of inbreeding on the birth weight (BW) of Saanen goat kids under the framework of the genetic animal model for maternal traits. The BW of the kids was analyzed as the inherent phenotypic trait of the kid, and not of their mothers (does) which means that the impact of the direct inbreeding (not maternal) was examined. The estimated ratios of variance components for direct genetic, indirect maternal genetic, maternal permanent environmental, and herd effects were 0.127, 0.026, 0.163, and 0.373, respectively. The average coefficient of inbreeding (F) was 2.5%, and 4.2% among the inbreds. The results of the preliminary conducted glm ANCOVA analysis implicated statistically significant inbreeding depression for BW (βF=-0.0076, P<0.001). However, when the genetic animal model for maternal traits was applied in the inferential statistical analysis, it turned out that there was no statistically significant effect of F on BW of kids in this population (βF= 0.0001; P>0.05)