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A note on the relationship between litter size at birth and litter weight at weaning in domesticated and feral mice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2010

W. R. Congleton Jr
W. R. Congleton Jr
Affiliation:
Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA
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Abstract

The relationship between litter size at birth and litter weight at weaning is curvilinear, with an intermediate litter size resulting in the heaviest litter weight at weaning. Relative to feral mice, the mean and variation for litter size at birth was larger for domesticated mice which had been selected for fertility and crossbred. Consequently, some of the litters from the crossbred domesticated mice were larger than the litter size at birth which optimized litter weight at weaning, primarily due to increased pre-weaning mortality. If litter weight at weaning is to be optimized by indirect selection for litter size at birth, the variation around an intermediate optimum litter size at birth could be most effectively reduced by negative assortative mating.

Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Production , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , October 1981 , pp. 219 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1981

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References

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