Inheritance of juvenile and production traits in Vanaraja female (PD-2 line) chicken

The experiment was aimed at evaluating the performance of Vanaraja female line (PD-2) chicken. Data collected on 3737 chicks, progeny of 50 sires and 250 dams produced in a pedigreed full sib mating in four hatches during 15^th generation. For egg quality 446 eggs were randomly selected during 40 weeks of age. The average egg shell weight, shell thickness, haugh unit score, yolk colour, egg weight and shape index were 4.52 g, 0.40 mm, 79, 7.84, 51.49 and 75.22 respectively. Heritability estimates for juvenile body weights, based on various components of variance were low to moderate except for 6 week body weight. High heritability estimates of 6-week weight (0.23 to 0.36) indicate scope for genetic improvement for body weight and heritability for shank length were low to moderate. Genetic and phenotypic correlation estimates among body weights were positive and high in magnitude. Heritability estimates for grower and layer body weight, based on various components of variance were moderate to high. Heritability estimates for age at sexual maturity ASM ranged from moderate to high, heritability for EP40 ranged from low to moderate. Heritability for egg weights were moderate to high. Genetic and phenotypic correlation of EP40 with body weights was negative in direction and low in magnitude. Genotypic correlations among egg weights at 40 weeks with egg production at 40 weeks were negative and low in magnitude. Genetic and phenotypic correlations among body weights and egg weights were positive and ranging from low to moderate. The study revealed that PD-2-line population has the genetic variability in production traits with reasonable additive genetic variance which will be transferred to offspring. The improvement in primary traits will lead to higher the performance in terminal crosses, which is beneficial to the farmers.