Genetics of growth traits and meat quality in the rabbit

Abstract

Until now, the genetic improvement of meat rabbits has been devoted to reproduction traits (i.e. litter size) in doe lines, and more recentlyrelated to production criteria in buck lines, i.e. growth rate. For the last 15 years, this selection has induced a decrease of 2 weeks inslaughter age, whereas weight at slaughter has not changed. Based on comparisons between different breeds or strains, a correlatedimprovement in feed efficiency, a decrease in carcass fatness, but also the degradation of dressing out percentage, were expected. Thegenetic studies on carcass and meat quality or muscle characteristics are far from numerous. Recently, some within-breed selectionexperiments have been performed to investigate correlated responses. Whereas feed consumption ratio was negatively correlated withgrowth rate, these experiments did not confirm all the expectations for carcass composition, mainly fat content. As a whole, they suggestedweak genetic relationships between muscle or meat characteristics and growth rate. The selection currently practised for growthrate has few consequences on meat quality in rabbits.