This study aims to contribute towards the genetic improvement of Nigerian local chicken ecotype through selection. Genetic parameters for body weight at first egg (BWFE), egg number (EN) and egg weight (EW) till first 90 days of lay were estimated for both selected and control lines. Selection was based on an index using BWFE, EN and EW as the selection criterion traits. After three generations of index selection, BWFE, EN and EW all improved significantly (P<0.05) in the selected line. The heritability estimates for all traits in the three generations for both lines were moderate to high (BWFE, EN, EW,). Low to high positive genetic and phenotypic correlation was observed between BWFE and EW. The genetic and phenotypic correlation between BWFE and EN, and EW and EN were generally moderate to highly negative in both lines for all generations. However, in the second generation of the selected line a positive genetic correlation (0.33) was observed between EW and EN.

The present study was carried out to determine the livestock breeding practices and the trait preferences of sheep farmers in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. A total of 132 sheep keepers were randomly sampled out of which data from 120 farmers were utilized in the final analysis. Primary data were collected through individual semi-structured questionnaire administration. Categorical and continuous variables including production and breeding traits were statistically tested based on sex of the respondents. Age of respondents, educational status, primary occupation, access to credit, and type of landholding were significantly different between the male and female farmers. Flock size was higher in farms owned by male farmers (19.63±1.04 versus 15.16±1.00). However, both sexes did not differ (p>0.05) in the ranking of meat, religion, income, hides, and skin and cultural purpose as reasons for keeping sheep. As regards management of sheep, control of breeding and access to veterinary services were low among female farmers. Apart from cultural/religious significance which was ranked higher by female farmers (63.38 versus 52.23; p≤0.05), other production traits such as disease resistance, survivability, growth rate, meat quality, fertility, body size, and prolificacy did not vary between sexes. Disease resistance, which the male farmers attached more importance (57.0 versus 70.52; p≤0.05), was the only significant breeding trait between sexes. Categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA) also revealed little influence of sex on the production and breeding traits investigated. The present findings could guide interventions such as the setting up of sustainable community-based breeding schemes to improve sheep production in the study area.

Data from 302 progeny in a heterogeneous population of rabbits were used to estimate the heritability and correlations (phenotypic and genetic) of pre-weaning litter traits (litter size at birth LSB, litter size at weaning LSW, litter weight birth LWB, litter weight at weaning LWW, kit weight birth KWB, and kit weight weaning KWW). Heritability estimates for litter size ranged from 0.16 (LSW) to 0.22 (LSB). LWB and LWW were more highly heritable (0.52 and 0.55 respectively) than KWB and KWW (0.36 and 0.25 respectively). The genetic (rG ) and phenotypic (rP) correlations between litter size and litter weight at birth and weaning were 0.69 to 0.88 (rG) and 0.28 to 0.88 (rP). Generally, litter traits gave higher estimates than individual kit traits implying that selection criteria based on litter performance rather than on individual kit performance should be applied in genetic improvement of pre-weaning traits in rabbits raised in derived savanna zone.

The experiment was carried out with a total of one hundred and fifty eggs, which were collected from a local chicken variety of southeastern Nigeria hens reared in a cage system. The objective of this study was to determine the phenotypic relationship between egg weight and the other egg quality traits. The mean values related to the external egg quality traits - egg weight (EW), egg length (EL), egg breadth (EB), egg shape index (EST), shell weight (SW) and shell thickness (ST) were 38.99 g, 49.98 mm, 36.66 mm, 0.73, 4.05 g and 0.34 mm respectively. The internal egg quality traits – albumen height (AH), albumen weight (AW), yolk height (YH), yolk weight (YW) and Haugh unit (HU) have the following mean values, 7.53 mm, 19.86 g, 16.80 mm, 12.62 g and 65.21 respectively. There were significant (P<0.01) positive phenotypic correlations between EW and EL, EW and EB, EW and SW, and between EW and all the internal quality traits except HU - which had a non significant (P>0.01) negative correlation. Significant negative correlation was found between EW and ESI. It was concluded that it was feasible to assess some egg quality traits through the egg weight. This is important in view of integrating the local chicken into egg laying breeding programs in Nigeria.

A study was conducted to estimate the diversity that exists among three rabbit populations adapted to the South-Eastern part of Nigeria. Blood samples were collected from 75 matured, mixedsex, and unrelated three rabbit breeds selected across the zone. Eight microsatellites (Sol30, Sol33, and Sol44, Sat3, Sat7, Sat8, Sat12, and INRA) markers were used for the study. These microsatellites were uniformly distributed among rabbit genomes for genotyping. Subsequently, genetic variability within and between breeds was calculated. Allelic frequencies and Hardy-Weinberg equilibriums as well as Analysis of Molecular Variance, were also estimated using GenAlEX 6.41 software. Discriminant Analysis of Principal Components (DAPC) for the population structure of the rabbit breeds was performed in R v.3.5.0 using the R package adegenet. All the 8 loci amplified in this study were found to be 100% polymorphic, the observed allele sizes and their frequencies for the microsatellite markers in every three breeds showed that the highest frequency was 0.330 for the allele with the size of 470bp at Sol33 locus in New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. The Nei's genetic identities and distances between Chinchilla (CHI) and Dutch (DUT), CHI and NZW, DUT and NZW obtained in this study were [0.173, 0.185, and 0.189] and [1.753, 1.689, and 1.666] respectively. The dendrogram and biplot revealed that the three breeds were identified at two separate clusters. In addition, the admixture level of an individual rabbit among the three breeds indicated that the breeds were not pure and also the existence of more polymorphism within the breed than among the breed diversity.