Heritability of production and laying traits in meat-type quails/Herdabilidade de caracteristicas de producao e postura em matrizes de codornas de corte

The objective of this study to determine the heritability of characteristics of productive and reproductive performance of different genetic groups of arrays of meat quails, estimating genetic parameters using univariate analyzes. We evaluated two genetic groups (UFV1 and UFV2) in the period 2006 to 2009, being accompanied by five generations, totaling 2136 arrays. Quail were weighed at birth, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 77, 112 and 147 days of age. We evaluated each quail eggs were collected for three consecutive days, during four periods of 35 days and measured the width and length of eggs, yolk weight, albumen and shell. We evaluated the specific gravity of eggs and measured the rate of overall posture and age at first egg. Univariate analyzes were performed to estimate the variance components, using the method of restricted maximum likelihood using the program and calculated the MTDFREML hedabilidades. For the quality of eggs heritability values were moderate to high (0.13 to 0.55), high values for growth (0.64 to 0.68) and moderate to high for egg shape (0.10 to 0.57). Heritability estimates for egg quality found indicate a high genetic variability for both genetic groups. As for the weights indicated that selection within the population could result in increases in weight by selection based on individual information. For the characteristics of an egg shape, the heritability values suggest the possibility of genetic groups that meet a standard shape.