The complex of desirable maternal traits includes litter size, mothering ability and milk production, combined with aspects of piglet viability or survival and sow rebreeding performance. There are two major contradictory elements within this trait complex. Firstly, larger litters will be, on average, lighter at birth, and result in an extended duration of farrowing. These characteristics may a...

We estimated heritability for subsequent rebreeding (SR) of heifers and genetic correlations between this trait and weaning weight (WW), weight gain from weaning to yearling (WG), age at first calving (AFC), and mature cow weight (MW), in order to evaluate whether SR could be included as selection criterion in Nellore cattle. The SR of heifers was defined by attributing a value of 1 (success) o...