GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC CORRELATIONS OF BODY WEIGHT AND SHANK LENGTH WITH SOME EGG PRODUCTION-RELATED TRAITS IN TWO JAPANESE QUAIL GENOTYPES DIFFERING IN PLUMAGE COLOUR

Mahmoud, Bothaina; Farahat, Gihan; El-Full, Ensaf

doi:10.21608/epsj.2014.5309

GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC CORRELATIONS OF BODY WEIGHT AND SHANK LENGTH WITH SOME EGG PRODUCTION-RELATED TRAITS IN TWO JAPANESE QUAIL GENOTYPES DIFFERING IN PLUMAGE COLOUR

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Poul. Prod. Dep., Fac. of Agric., Fayoum Univ., Egypt

10.21608/epsj.2014.5309

Abstract

This study was carried out to identify the white plumage in Japanese quail and compare it with the brown-type quail for possible genetic and phenotypic differences associated with the plumage colour, estimate the genetic and phenotypic correlation coefficients between both body weight (BW) and shank length (SL) at different ages from hatch up to 35 days of age based on weekly intervals and the age at the first egg (AFE), number of days needed to produce the first 10 eggs (DN10), number of days needed to produce the first 30 eggs (DN30), age at first 10 eggs (AGE10), age at first 30 eggs (AGE30), egg mass of the first 10 eggs (EM10), egg mass of the first 30 eggs (EM30), number of eggs produced in the first month (ENFM), number of eggs produced in the second month (ENSM), number of eggs produced in the first two months (ENFTM), egg mass for the first month (EMFM), egg mass for the second month (EMSM) and egg mass of the first two months (EMFTM) which individually recorded by bird.
The main results are summarized as the following:
1. The brown genotype had significantly heavier BW at the ages 21, 28, 35 day and at sexual maturity, where longer SL at 7 and 21 day of age than the white genotype. The white genotype had significantly heavier BW at one day old than the brown genotype.
2. The brown genotype matured at earlier age than the white genotype (P≤0.05) by 6.08 days. However, the white genotype had longer days that needed to produce the first 30 eggs(P≤0.05) by 8.66 days and attained the first 10 and 30 eggs at later ages (27.32 and 38.34 days of age) than the brown genotype.
3. There was a good harmony for rg estimates between BW with some egg production-related traits recorded at different ages based on sire covariance components in the white and brown genotypes (approximately 64.83% of their results).

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