Evaluation and genetic analysis of egg production and egg quality traits in Rajasri birds

The present investigation was carried out to assess the productive and reproductive performance of Rajasri variety of backyard chicken. Hatch of the birds significantly (P < 0.01) influenced the age at first egg (AFE), egg production up to 40 weeks of age (EP40), egg weight at 28 and 40 weeks of age (EW28 and EW40) and the corresponding means were 164.74±0.24 days, 61.00±0.43 eggs, 42.43±0.08 g and 43.79±0.09 g, respectively. The mean fertility was 82.65 per cent. The mean hatchability percentage on total egg set was 72.96 and on fertile egg set was 88.02. The average egg shell weight, shell thickness, haugh unit score, albumen index, yolk index and yolk colour was 4.45±0.07 g; 0.33±0.01mm; 86.31±1.12; 0.09±0.01; 0.44±0.01 and 6.78±0.16, respectively. The dam component of heritability for AFE was 0.01±0.06. The heritability estimates based on h²_S, h²_D and h²_S+D component were 0.06±0.04, 0.05±0.06 and 0.06±0.04 for EP40; 0.19±0.06; 0.11±0.07 and 0.15±0.08 for EW28; and 0.10±0.04; 0.02±0.06 and 0.06±0.07 for EW40, respectively. The genetic correlations between EP40 and EWs were negative and moderate in magnitude while the phenotypic correlations between the same were low in magnitude. The study revealed that the productive performance of Rajasri birds was comparable with other backyard varieties and heritability estimates were low for various production traits.