Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between linear body measurements and age and body weight in indigenous female chickens of the Boschveld breed in Namibia. Materials and Methods: Thirty-five chickens were reared from day-old to 18 weeks of age at the university farm. Neck length, shank length, comb length, keel length, chest girth, wing length, beak length and body length were measured weekly over 18 weeks. Results: The study found a strong, positive and significant correlation [r (17) $0.97#1, p<0.001] between age and linear body measurements and between body weight and linear body measurements [r (17) $0.96#0.99, p<0.001]. On a weekly basis, shank length, keel length, beak length, comb length, chest girth, neck length, wing length and body length increased on average by 0.47, 0.56, 0.13, 0.26, 1.44, 0.93, 0.95 and 1.15 cm respectively. For every 1 cm change in shank length, keel length, beak length, comb length, chest girth, neck length, wing length and body length, body weight increased on average by 217.8, 183.2, 750.5, 382.1, 69.2, 111.6, 0.104 and 86.5 g, respectively. Age was responsible for 94.5 and 99.4% of the variation in the linear body parameters, while body weight explained 92.5 and 97.8% of the variation up to 18 weeks of age. Neck length had the highest, positive and significant correlation to age [r (17) =1, p<0.001] and body weight [r (17) = 0.99, p<0.001] and was therefore considered the best predictor of the two parameters. Results of this study showed that neck length is an appropriate measure for predicting age and body weight in Boschveld chickens up to 18 weeks of age. Conclusion: The results of this study have a potential application in the monitoring of growth in poultry enterprises for timely diagnosis of stunted growth in female Boschveld chickens due to subtle pathology.

Relationship of age and live weight to linear body traits in female intensively reared Boschveld chicken in Namibia

This study aimed to investigate the genetic parameters for body weights of White and Black local chickens. The experiment conducted at College of Agric., Salahaddien Univ. during the period from Sept. 2016 until April 2018. 520 fertile eggs were taken from Agri. Res. Center, Ministry of Agric., Baghdad. Hatched chicks considered as parents (G0), and distributed randomly in to ten families. Resulted eggs from each family were collected during the peak of production for each generation to produce chicks of the next generation (G1 and G2). Body weights of resulted chicks were recorded at 1-day old and weekly till maturity. SAS program used to analyze the body weights (BW) and body weight gains (BWG) at different ages. The model includes genetic groups and generations for traits before sexing and the effect of sex added for the traits after sexing. Variance component of random effects estimated by REML and tested for positive definiteness to develop reliable estimates. Repeatability for body weights estimated. BW of chicks at 1 day, 4, 8, 9, 10, 16 and 17 week were 31.02, 292.47, 679.29, 794.58, 892.82, 1362.53 and 1252.17 g, and BWG at (1-4, 4-8, 9-10 and10-16) weeks were 261.45, 386.82, 98.24, and 469.51 g, respectively. The chicks of black group significantly excelled the white group in their weight at 1 day, 4, 8, 16 and 17, as well at ages 1-4 and 10-16 weeks. The effect of generation on BW of chicks at all ages and BWG at 1-4, 4-8 weeks was highly significant and (P<0.05) during 9-10 and 10-16 weeks. Males surpassed females significantly (p<0.01) in their BW at 9, 10 and 16 weeks and in their BWG during 9-10 and 10-16 weeks. Estimates of heritability were 0.42, 0.61, 0.76, 0.71, 0.43, 0.51, and 0.70 and of repeatability were 0.29, 0.26, 0.22, 0.38, 0.41, 0.74, and 0.78 for BW at 1 day, 4, 8, 9, 10, 16 and 17 weeks respectively. Higher (0.78) and lower (0.14) genetic correlations were recorded between BW at 8 weeks with each of BW at 10 and 17 weeks respectively. While the phenotypic correlations ranged between 0.04 (among BW at 1 day with weight at 9 weeks) and 0.58 (among BW 16 with 17 weeks).

https://jcoagri.uobaghdad.edu.iq/index.php/intro/article/download/931/695

Genetic and non genetic parameters for body weights of two iraqi local chickns

The study assessed the growth of FUNAAB-Alpha chickens (FAC) using spline and non-linear functions in order to establish the most appropriate growth function(s) for FAC. Three hundred (300) day-old chickens of FAC were used for the study. They were raised intensively under a deep litter system for 20 weeks and body weight records were taken weekly with the aid of a digital scale. Spline models of different numbers of, and locations of, knots were fitted using the REG procedure of SAS® while four non-linear models (Gompertz, Logistic, Bertalanffy and Richards') were fitted using the NLIN procedure of SAS®. The estimated hatch weight (β0) for the male and female chickens ranged from 30.77 g to 74.71 g and from 15.56 g to 38.19 g, respectively. The regression coefficients ranged from -38.47 to 47.46 and -39.40 to 40.47 for the male and female, respectively. The highest magnitudes of these coefficients were estimated at early ages (3 to 10 weeks), implying that growth rate at early stage of life might be a key response to selection for later growth performance. For non-linear models, parameter A (or asymptotic weight) for all the models ranged from 3716 g to 2050 g and 1591 g to 3330 g for male and female, respectively. The parameter (B), the scaling parameter (constant of integration), ranged from 0.7541 to 15.441. Likewise, parameter K, which is the maturity index, ranged from 0.0463 to 0.2002. The age at inflection point for FUNAAB-Alpha chickens ranged between 13.30 and 17.63 weeks for male chickens and between 14.23 and 19.94 weeks for female chickens while the corresponding body weight at inflection point ranged between 754 and 1528 g and 586 and 1261 g for male and female chickens, respectively. Based on Akaike Information Criterion and Bayesian Information Criterion as best fit model selection criteria, it was concluded that the spline models of 3 and 4 knots were the best fit linear spline models while Bertalanffy and Gompertz models were selected as the best fit non-linear models.

https://sjas.ojs.sk/sjas/article/download/561/546

Assessment of spline functions and non-linear models for estimating growth curve parameters of funaab-alpha chickens

The present study was conducted to assess the effect of genotype on hatchability, growth, morphometric and carcass traits of the naked-neck, normal-feathered, and Tetra H chicken in Southwest Ethiopia. A total of 135 day-old chicks, 45 from each genotype, were randomly stratified into 9 replicates (15 chicks/replicate), in a completely randomized design (CRD). Commercial starter and grower feed was fed ad libitum during the 18 weeks of the experimental period. The results showed that daily feed intake, daily weight gain, and final body weight of the Tetra H genotype were significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the naked-neck and normal-feathered. The feed conversion ratio of the Tetra H genotype (3.76) was significantly lower (p < 0.05) than the naked-neck (5.6) and normal-feathered (6.1) genotype, indicating the Tetra H was better in feed conversion efficiency. In addition, chicken in the Tetra H genotype had significantly higher linear body measurements such as body length, chest width, and keel bone length and higher carcass traits such as carcass weight, breast, drumstick, and thigh muscle than the naked-neck and normal-feathered genotypes. We observed a positive relationship between body weight and some linear body measurement traits, and these traits could be used to predict the live body weight of the chicken. It was concluded that there were genetic variations among the studied chicken genotypes for the traits evaluated, evidenced by significantly higher growth performance, body length, and width, and carcass traits, feed conversion efficiency of chicken in Tetra H genotype than chicken in other genotypes, indicating the suitability of this genotype for meat production. On the other hand, the indigenous genotypes were found to be more fertile, hatchable, and livable. Further studies are needed to validate the cross-breeding and adaptive performances of those chicken genotypes under different agroecologies. 

Effect of genotype on hatchability, growth, morphometric and carcass traits of Chicken

ABCTRACT: The present study evaluated to assess genetic variability in performance traits, Blood Parameters and immune competence by using biotechnological methods on two Egyptian broiler lines Cairo-B2 and Random breed control (RBC). A total of two thousand chicks, from the ninth generation from lines, were reared in four replicated rooms under the same conditions until 8 weeks of age. Live body weight was determined weekly for Cairo-B2 and Random breed control (RBC) until 8 weeks, Blood samples were collected at 4 weeks of age from 20 chicks from each line to determined Triiodothyronine(T3), thyroxine (T4), total protein (TP), total lipids (TL), hematocrit (Ht), and Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), The primary immune response of 30 chicks per line to Sheep red blood cells (SRBC) antigens was injected at 4 weeks and repeated at 6 weeks of age. 40 chicks from each line were slaughtered to determined carcass characteristics, the Cairo-B2 line had significantly higher than RBC line in body weight, carcass, breast meat, neck and wings weights. The results were the RBC line had significantly higher T3 and IGF-1 than the Cairo-B2 line and there was no significant difference in T4, TP, TL and Ht between the lines. The RBC line had higher antibodies titers to SRBC than the Cairo-B2 line that was shown in each injection. We are concluded that selection for high body weight over many generations can negatively effect on the immune response and carcass weight.

Effect of genetically improved on physiological, immune response and productive performance in native chickens

A study was conducted to evaluate growth traits, including body weight, body length, chest girth, leg length, shank length and shank circumference, using data obtained from 150 mixed sex birds originating from improved Nigerian local chicken (75 normal feather and 75 naked neck genotypes) of 4 – 16 weeks of age. Body weight of each genotype and at various ages was regressed on other growth traits studied. During the early growth phase (4 – 8 weeks), there were significant variations (p 0.05) was observed in the two genotypes for all traits by the 16 th week of age. Strong and highly significant (p 0.77) for all ages except at 4 weeks of age (0.04), indicating that most of these traits could be used to forecast body weight precisely at various ages. Keywords: Local chicken, Normal feather, Naked neck, Body weight, Growth traits, Linear model

/pdf/phenotypic-evaluation-of-growth-traits-in-two-nigerian-local-1qj6j0rmfy.pdf

Romanus Francis Kurutsi

Papers

Phenotypic evaluation of growth traits in two Nigerian local chicken genotypes