Comparative Analysis of Fertile Egg Quality Traits in Exotic, two Nigerian Ecotype Chickens and their Crosses

Abstract

The study evaluated the effect of Strains on External and Internal quality traits of egg produced by Exotic breed (Sussex), two Nigerian chicken breeds (naked neck (NK) and Normal feathered (NM)) and their crosses (Sussex x naked neck (SNK) and Sussex x normal feathered (SNM) in a battery cage system and designed in a Completely Randomized Design. Total population of 100 matured birds (36 hens per Nigerian ecotype and 25 hens of exotic breed with one cock per ecotype and breed).Thirty freshly laid egg per day per strain were cracked for External and internal parameters: - egg weight (EW), egg length (EL), egg width (ED), shell weight (SW), egg shell index (ESI), shell ratio (SR), yolk height (YH), yolk index (YI), albumen weight (AW), albumen ratio (AR), albumen height (AH) yolk ratio (YR) and Haugh unit (HU) for the 10 weeks study. Data collected were subjected to one-way Analysis of Variance. Results obtained indicated a significant (P<0.05) effect of strains on most internal and external egg parameters in this study. The crossbred and pure indigenous chickens had means statistically (P < 0.05) lower for all the traits than that of pure Sussex except for SI, YH, YI, AR, YW and AR. The ranges for the traits are EW (42.30-55.55), SR (9.98-12.4), ED (34.40-42.29), EL (47.73-56.60), ESI (72.07-78.79), SW (4.34-6.90), AW (23.30-30.65) and AH (3.62-6.50). Eggs of Crossbreds had higher values than eggs of pure indigenous strains in all the external egg parameters exception of EW. Hence, crossbreeding should be adopted for the improvement of egg quality traits.

Key words: Exotic chicken breed; Indigenous chickens; Crossbred chickens; Egg traits