ABSTRACT

Fourteen, eight weeks old rabbits, comprising of 11 Chinchilla (Ci IN) and 3 New Zealand White (NZW) were used in this study. Seven quantitative traits and seven markers were used to discriminate between the two breeds. Descriptive statistics showed that New Zealand White rabbits were superior to Chinchilla in all quantitative traits but that Chinchilla rabbits were superior to New Zealand White in all markers, except Red Blood Cell (RBC) count. The group ccntroids resulting from the derived discrimination functions, using all quantitative trails, selected quantitative traits (i.e. BL), all markers and selected marker (i.e. I'P) indicate that the two breeds were largely distinct. However, the percentage of correct classification of NZW and CIIN rabbits was highest (90.9% and 86.7%. respectively) using all quantitative traits. This was followed by 89, 1 % using BI only for NZW and 80.0% using all markers for CIIN. For NZW, the worst classification was with TP only (67.3%) and for ClIN, it is wilh ill only (66.7%). The results of this study indicate that the two groups studied, namely New Zealand White and Chinchilla are really distinct breeds based on their quantitative traits and biologic markers