Heterotic effects on litter traits in crossbreeding experiment involving Egyptian rabbit lines.

A four-years crossbreeding experiment was performed involving two synthetic rabbit lines of APRI (A) and Moshtohor (M) where bucks of the APRI line were mated with does of the Moshtohor line to produce F crossbred (½A½M), followed by inter-se mating to obtain F crossbred (½A½M). A total of 669 litters produced from 184 bucks and 394 does were used in analyzing litter size at birth (LSB) and weaning (LSW), litter weight at birth (LWB) and weaning (LWW) and pre-weaning mortality (PM). Heritability estimates for the targeted traits were low to moderate, ranging from 0.