PHENOTYPIC CORRELATION OF GROWTH TRAITS IN INDIGENOUS NORMAL FEATHERED CHICKENS OF NIGERIA

Résumé

A study was conducted to determine the relationships between body weight and linear body measurements: Chest girth (CG), body length (BL), thigh length (THL), shank length (SL) shank circumference (SC), wing length (WL) and keel length (KL) of indigenous normal feathered chicken progenies. One hundred and thirty eight (138) birds comprising of eighty one (81) males and fifty seven (57) females from the foundation stock were used. Phenotypic correlations between body weight and linear body measurements, simple and multiple regressions were carried out using Statistical Analysis System (SAS, Version 9.1). The phenotypic correlation coefficients among growth traits were positive, high and significant (P<0.01) in both sexes. Highest correlations between BW and CG (0.897) and between BW and THL (0.843) were observed in both males and females,
respectively. Prediction equations obtained for both sexes indicated that values for coefficient of determination (R2) were highest for CG and SC (0.80) in males and SL (0.63) was the best predictor in females. The study concluded that bodyweight could be predicted with high degree of accuracy using linear body measurements.