Some biometric and allometric growth traits of purebred heavy ecotype of the nigerian local chicken

Project Abstract

<p> Fifty five (55) experimental birds were randomly replicated into 5 deep litter pens in the ratio of 1<br>cock 10 hens. Like to like random mating was ensured to raise 200 chicks in the F1 generation.<br>Chicks were subjected to measurements like body weight, body length, shank length, shank<br>colour, beak colour, feather colour, feed conversion ratio, mean feed consumption, egg colour,<br>egg fertility, egg hatchability, dead embryo and mortality at hatch and subsequently at 4 weekly<br>intervals.<br>Data obtained from these traits at ages of 0 (day old) – week, 4-weeks, 8-weeks,12-weeks 16-<br>weeks and 20 weeks were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a nested or hierarchial<br>design and in a paternal half sib analysis using SAS (2004) statistical procedure.<br>Body weight was significantly different among the progeny and ranged from 30.33g at day old to<br>1334.67g at 20 weeks of age. Sire had no significant effect in average body weight gain<br>(ABWG), expect at 8-12weeks of age. ABWG ranged from 85.05g at 4 weeks to 441.20g at 20<br>weeks of age.<br>There was significant (p&lt;0.001) difference in feed conversion ratio (FCR) at 12 weeks of age.<br>Sire had highly significant (p&lt;0.001) effect on average feed consumption (AFC) from 4-20 weeks<br>of age.<br>Sire had significant (p&lt;0.05) effect on body length (BL) at 12 and 20 weeks of age. Sire had<br>significant (p&lt;0.05) effect on shank length at 0 week of age.<br>Sire had highly significant (p&lt;0.001) effect on shank colour at day old and it ranged from cream<br>colour to cream black colour.<br>Sire had highly significant (p&lt;0.001) effect on the beak colour at 0 week, which ranged from<br>cream to cream hazenut.<br>There were highly significant differences (p0.05) in the number<br>of infertile eggs laid throughout the experiment. Sire significantly (p&lt;0.001) influenced the<br>hatchability of eggs laid, the number of embryos that died in the shell and the number of chicks<br>that died after hatching.<br>The heritability estimates of body weight (BW) ranged from 0.05 at 4 weeks to 0.54 at 12 weeks<br>of age. The body length (BL) heritability estimates ranged from 0.06 at 4 weeks to 0.80 at 0<br>weeks. Heritability estimates of shank length (SL) ranged from -0.12 at 16 weeks to 0.80 at 0<br>week of age. Heritability estimates for shank colour, beak colour and feather colour were 1.38,<br>0.80 and 0.17 respectively. The average feed consumption heritability estimates ranged from 0.16<br>at 4 weeks to 2.00 at 8 weeks. Heritability estimates for feed conversion ratio ranged from -0.15<br>at 4 weeks to 1.15 at 12 weeks. Heritability estimates ABWG ranged from -0.10 at 16 weeks to<br>1.16 at 12 weeks of age.<br>The phenotypic correlation (rP) was in the range of -0.0178 between BW and BC at hatch to<br>0.6496 between BL and SL at 20 weeks of age.<br>The genetic correlation, rG (sire) ranged from -0.22 between BW at 8 weeks and BW at 20 weeks of<br>age to 1.7298 between BW and SL at hatch.<br>The data on all the traits studied indicate that the heavy ecotype could form a foundation stock<br>for layer, meat and dual purpose breed development in Nigeria. <br></p>

Project Overview