Application of REML procedure to estimate the genetic parameters of weekly liveweights in one-to-one sire and dam pedigree recorded Japanese quail

Residual maximum likelihood procedure was applied to analyse data from a one-to-one pedigreed Japanese quail population, using an animal model to estimate the genetic parameters of weekly liveweights. Records of 1108 animals from 113 sires and 152 dams were analysed. An individual animal model was used. The heritabilities of weights for hatching (HW) with their standard errors (SE), week 1 (W1), week 2 (W2), week 3 (W3), week 4 (W4), week 5 (W5) and week 6 (W6) were 0.51 +/- 0.05, 0.32 +/- 0.06, 0.20 +/- 0.05, 0.21 +/- 0.06, 0.20 +/- 0.05, 0.15 +/- 0.04 and 0.14 +/- 0.04, respectively. The strongest genetic correlations were found between W1 and W3 (0.98 +/- 0.11). Generally, genetic correlations were higher than the phenotypic correlations. The highest phenotypic correlation (0.85) was between the W4 and W5 weights. Strong genetic correlations among the weekly weights suggest that selection for W5 or W6 weight may be based on weights recorded earlier.