Estimation of genetic and phenotypicparameters for internal eggquality traitsof Azerbaijan's native chickens

Authors
L. Shahri
S. Alijani
H. Jonmohammadi3
H. Daghighkia
P. Bostanchi
S Alizadeh
10.22077/jlr.2014.264
Abstract
The records obtained from fourteenth generation of Azarbaijan's native chickens were used to estimate the genetic and phenotypic parameters for internal quality characteristics of eggs. Performance of 960 chickens and internal quality of 2000 eggs were collected. Genetic and phenotypic parameters were estimated by a set of single-trait and multiple-trait animal models by restricted maximum likelihood (REML) using AIREMLF90 software. Means for traits of Haugh unit, albumen height, albumen weight, yolk weight, yolk width and yolk index were 62.08%, 4.26 mm, 33.29 g, 16.88 g, 40.63 mm and 35.91%, respectively. Heritabilities for the traits were 0.38, 0.3, 0.38, 0.36, 0.27 and 0.22 (by single-trait model) and 0.71, 0.65, 0.71, 0.75, 0.62 and 0.56 (by multiple-trait model). The highest genetic correlation was found between Haugh unit and albumen weight (0.96). Generally, heritabilities estimated by multiple-trait animal model were higher than that of obtained by single trait model and that based on high genetic correlations between traits, the lattermodel is more valid than the former model. Regarding the high value of heritability for albumen weight obtained by multiple-trait model, selection for this trait could result in improving Haugh unit and,as a consequence, quality of Azarbaijan’s native chicken eggs.
Keywords
Internal egg quality traits
Phenotypic and genetic parameters
Azerbaijan's nativechicken