EFFECT OF SELECTION ON PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF DESI CHICKEN FOR FOUR GENERATIONS - M. A. Anjum; A. W. Sahota; M. Akram; K. Javed; S. Mehmood (Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 2012)
The present study was conducted at Poultry Research Institute (PRI), Rawalpindi, to evaluate productive performance of the four successive generations (P1, P2, P3 and P4) evolved after selective breeding for first laying cycle (52 weeks egg production) in comparison to their parents (P0). For this purpose, 264 adult Desi birds (240 pullets and 24 males, about 24 weeks old) were selected out of the flock shifted from Mianwali, during first year of the experiment. They were randomly divided into 3 separate experimental units (replicates), each having 88 birds (80 pullets and 8 males) and were maintained in individual trap nests in an open sided house under optimal management conditions. The experimental birds were fed a balanced breeder ration and fresh and clean drinking water ad libitum. A lighting schedule of 16 hours was followed. The parent hens in each replicate were artificially inseminated weekly once with semen collected from their respective male Desi parents separately maintained in male trap nest cages. The eggs from the individually selected parent hens on the basis of better egg production performance were incubated under standard incubation conditions to obtain the first progeny. Out of these, 264 adult birds (240 pullets and 24 males) were maintained for a period of 52 weeks under the same management and housing conditions used for Desi parents. During the subsequent period of the experiment, 264 adult birds (240 pullets and 24 males) each of the generations ( P2, P3 and P4) from their respective parents evolved through selective breeding as in P0 were maintained in 3 equal experimental units during 3rd, 4th and 5th year of the experiment, respectively. Weekly data for the parents and each subsequent generation were obtained. The results showed significant (p<0.01) improvement in egg production, feed conversion efficiency (feed/dozen eggs and feed/kg eggs) and egg mass of Desi progenies in comparison to their parents which could be attributed to effect of selective breeding. The significantly (p<0.01) better productive performance in respect of above parameters was recorded in P4 in comparison to the parents and other progenies. However, egg size and mortality rate was found to vary non-significantly between Po and all other generations (P1 to P4). Based on the findings of this study it may be concluded that there is a scope for genetic improvement in production performance of Desi chicken
Keywords: journal article; Desi chicken; Productive performance; trap nest; Pullets; Feed conversion efficiency