Abstract
Heritability was estimated in Bhagnari, Droughtmaster and their crossbreeds using 25 years data on birth weight records (1317 records from 27 sires) from Beef Production Research Center, Sibi, Balochistan (Pakistan). Birth weight averaged 24.52 ± 4.40 kg. The trait was moderately heritable when analysis was performed using data from all the genetic groups. The estimate varied from 0.257 to 0.381 with model used. When separate analyses were performed for different genetic groups such as Bhagnari (BN), Droughtmaster (DM), BN x DM (Cl)' Cl x BN (C 2 ) and C 2 x Droughtmaster (Cl)' maximum heritability was observed for Droughtmaster (0.75) while it was minimum (0.08) for Cl animals. In purebred Bhagnari, birth weight was only 13% heritable. Improper recording of birth weight, sire for the calf, and environmental factors such as feed and fodder availability could be some of the reasons for such an estimate. Key words: Bhagnari cattle, birth weight, Droughtmaster, heritability
