Inheritance of growth and production traits in Gramapriya female parent line chicken

The present study was aimed at evaluating the performance of Gramapriya female line (PD-3) chicken using data collected on 1730 chicks, produced from 50 sires and 250 dams in a pedigreed full-sib mating in five hatches. The data were analyzed by least squares and hatch-corrected data were further analyzed by variance components analysis for estimation of genetic parameters. Highly significant (P≤0.01) differences among hatches were observed for body weight, shank length, age at sexual maturity (ASM), egg production (EP), egg weight (EW) and egg mass (EM). The least squares mean of body weight (BW) at 2, 4, 6, 20 and 40 weeks of age were 82.19±0.44, 185.7±1.05, 323.7±2.06, 1408±6.05 and 1795±7.92 g, respectively. The least-square mean of shank length at 4 and 6 weeks of age was 46.51±0.12 and 58.23±0.16 mm, respectively. The ASM was 157.9±0.65 days. The EP40 was 93.83±0.96 eggs with an egg weight (EW40) of 54.55±0.10 g. EM40, the primary trait of selection was 5113±49.48 g. The heritability estimate was moderate for EM40 (0.16±0.09), EP40 (0.15±0.09) and EW40 (0.29±0.12). The correlation coefficient between EP40 and EM40 was (0.90±0.08) positive with high degree of association. The correlation between egg weight and egg production was negative in direction (-0.24±0.33). The mean values of shape index, Haugh unit, shell weight and shell thickness were 75.25±0.30, 83.02±0.54, 4.8±0.33g and 0.37±0.01 mm, respectively in PD-3 line. The gradual improvement in primary trait (EM40) in parent line will improve the performance in terminal cross Gramapriya with respect to egg production and egg weight which ultimately benefit the farmers.