ABSTRACT

This study was carried out using Dutch (DUT) and Chinchilla (Cl-IA) breeds of rabbit. Four (4) Buck and ten (10) Doe of different breeds were selected and two (2) buck and five (5) doe of each breed were used to generate progenies for the study according to the mating type (Cl-IA x Cl-IA, DUT x DUT, Cl-IA x DUT and DUT x Cl-IA) to determine the estimation of heterosis for growth traits in domestic rabbit. Parameters were measured from 2 weeks to 6 weeks of experiment in each parity. For growth traits studied, there was positive heterosis for Ear length (EL) and Body length (BL) at all ages which showed hybrid vigour, which means that cross-breeding, is needed to improve the character, instead of direct selection. In 6" week, body length (BL) has the highest direct heterosis with (2.25) and there was positive heterosi in all the parameters except in Hearth girth (HG), length of fore limb (LFL), Length of Hind limb (LHL) and Head to Shoulder length (HS) that had negative heterosis. In each week, positive heterosis excelled the negative heterosis for each parameter which means that cross-breeding is the method of choice for bringing about genetic improvement for hybrid vigour.