Constitution and evaluation of a long-lived productive rabbit line.

An evaluation of a new maternal line (LP) of rabbits was carried out. This new line was founded following a scheme similar to that applied in the selection for hyperprolificacy in rabbits or pigs. In this case, the selection criteria were hyperlongevity and an independent culling level near the average for prolificacy. Evaluation was carried out by comparison of the reproductive and longevity performance of the LP line with another maternal line recognized for good reproductive performance and standard longevity (V line). The results indicate that the LP line could be a valuable resource for inclusion in the current 3-way cross schema used in rabbit production, because females showed better survival ability and nearly the same prolificacy as the well-reputed V line. A V doe was 1.3 times more likely to leave the herd than an LP doe, and the probability of the differences in prolificacy between lines being greater than 0 was not extreme (no more than 0.22). Differences in relative performance of the lines were observed across farms for prolificacy, longevity, cumulative production, and fertility; however, based on deviance information criterion results, the data supported the hypothesis of only these differences being generated under a genotype x environment interaction for prolificacy traits. The longer productive life of LP females could partially be understood as an indication of success of the selection procedure during the foundation of this line.