Principal Component Analysis for Morphometrics and Carcass Traits of Commercial Rabbits

This study was carried out to explain the highest percentages of total variance and best characterize the morphometric and carcass traits based on the principal components among three rabbit breeds such as New Zealand White, Hycole and Hyla. The parameters studied were body weight, chest weight, hip width, and chest girth. At slaughter, carcass traits such as hot carcass weight, cold carcass weight, reference carcass weight, and commercial cut point 1-5. Correlation between morphometric measurement and carcass traits were evaluated by using Statistical Analysis System (SAS). The results obtained revealed that body weight had the highest correlation with hot carcass weight, cold carcass weight and reference carcass weight among three rabbit breeds (P<0.05). It was concluded that high positive significant correlation coefficient values between morphometric measurement and most carcass traits in the three breeds of rabbits, suggesting that selection for one trait will lead to improvement in another traits.