Factors Influencing Early Layer Economic Traits in Rhode Island Red Chicken

Rhode Island Red (RIR) chicken is a brown-egger chicken. At Central Avian Research Institute, it is being used to develop strains viz. selected (RIR^S) control (RIR^C) and white (RIR^W) for backyard poultry farming. Investigation was carried out to assess the influence of various factors on early layer economic traits in Rhode Island Red chicken. Two hundred eighty six straight run chicks were obtained from 11 sires and 44 dams in four hatches. Early layer production traits viz., chick weight (CW), body weights at 16 and 20 weeks of age (BW16 and BW20), age at first egg (AFE), egg weight at 28 weeks (EW28) and part period egg production up to 28 weeks of age (EP28)were recorded. Percent fertility and percent hatchability on total egg set and total egg transferred basis were 76.98, 61.44 and 79.85%, respectively. Least squares ANOVA revealed highly significant effect (p≤0.01) of hatch on BW20, EP28 and effect of sire on chick weight and significant effect of sire (p≤0.05) on BW16. The overall least squares means of CW, BW16, BW20, AFE, EW28 and EP28 were 34.50±0.47g, 1294.27±24.38g, 1562.32±25.65g, 136.79±1.52 days, 43.52± 0.76 g and 31.54±1.68 eggs, respectively. The pullets of first hatch revealed highest BW20 (1732.76±43.70 g) and EP28 (42.85±2.55 eggs). Present investigation revealed influence of sire and hatch on early layer economic traits and thereby suggested consideration of their role in planning breeding programmes for improvement of layers for economic traits in RIR.