Affiliation:
1. Animal Breeding and Physiology Department, Institute of Animal Science, University of the Philipines Los Baños, College 4030, Laguna, Philippines
Abstract
The establishment of breeding and selection programs to improve the genetic potential of poultry necessitates estimation of genetic parameters for different production and reproduction traits, Restricted maximum likelihood (REML) software was used to estimate the heritability (h2) and genetic correlations (r) of body weights in Japanese quails (C. japonica) from hatch to fifth week of age. A total of 224 Japanese quails composed of 56 males and 168 females arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) served as the base population. Body weight records, measured weekly from hatch to fifth week, were utilized to estimate the genetic parameters. Heritability estimates were 0.093±0.004, 0244±0.010, 0.031±0.001, 0082±0.004, 0325±0.016 and 0.025±0.001 for body weights at hatch (BW0), first week (BW1), second week (BW2), third week (BW3), fourth week (BW4) and fifth week (BW5), respectively. Low heritability estimates depict a decrease in additive genetic variance as the generations progressed. Negative genetic correlation was found between BW0 and BW4 (r=- 0.027). The significant positive genetic correlations of BW0 with BW1 (r=0.271); BW1 with BW2 (r=0.270), BW3 (r=0.294), BW4 (r=0.255), and BW5 (r=0.243); BW2 with BW3 (r=0.561), BW4 (r=0.649), and BW5 (r=0.503); BW3 with BW4 (r=0.726), and BW5 (r=0.551); and BW4 with BW5 (r=0.689) are expected to bring correlated responses in the other traits.
Publisher
Annals of Tropical Medicine, Visayas State University
Reference27 articles.
1. Abdullah RB, Wan Embong WK & Soh HH. 2011. Biotechnology in animal production in developing countries. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Agricultural and Animal Science (pp88-91),November 25-27, 2011,Singapore
2. Aggrey SE and Cheng KM. 1994. Animal model analysis of genetic (co)variance of growth traits in Japanese quail. Poultry Science 73(12):1822-1828
3. Akbas Y, Takma C & Yaylak E. 2004. Genetic parameters for quail body weights using a random regression model. South African Journal of Animal Science 34(2):104—109
4. Aksit M, Oguz l,Akbas Y, Altan 0 & Ozdogan M. 2003. Genetic variation of feed traits and relationships to some meat production traits in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix Japonica). Archiv fur GefIugelkunde 67(2):76—82
5. Becker WA. 1985. Manual of Quantitative Genetics (4th edn) (pp190). Academic Enterprises, Pullman, Washington, USA