| Sumario: | A total of 587 kidding records of the West African Dwarf (WAD) goats over a period of 10 years (1982-91) were used for this study. The mean kidding interval and litter size at birth were 275.68±6.08 days and 1.79±0.05 kids, respectively. Effect of parity, season and year of birth were significant (P<0.05) for kidding interval. Parity also had significant effect (P<0.05) on litter size at birth. Heritability estimates of 0.35±0.05 and 0.32±0.07 were obtained from sire and sire-dam group, respectively, for litter size at birth. The heritability estimate for kidding interval was 0.03±0.01 for the sire-dam group. Repeatability estimates of 0.38±0.05 and 0.33±0.03 were obtained for litter size at birth from the dam and sire-dam groups, respectively, while 0.06±0.04 and 0.04±0.02 were obtained for kidding interval from dam and sire dam groups, respectively. Selection for multiple birth is likely to result in larger litter size and culling of does for long kidding interval should be based on more than two records.
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