EGG QUALITY OF THE NIGERIAN LOCAL CHICKEN AS INFLUENCED BY SOME MAJOR GENES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51791/njap.v34i1.2415Keywords:
Nigerian local chicken, frizzling gene, Naked neck gene, egg qualityAbstract
An investigations was carried out to determine the effect of the major genes of frizzling and naked neck on the external and internal egg quality traits of the Nigerian local chicken. Egg weight significantly (P < 0.01) favoured the frizzled local chicken and the naked-necked local chicken over the fully feathered (normal ) local chicken. The frizzling gene, F, caused an increase of 8.13% in weight while the naked neck gene Na, increased egg weight by 5.85%. The Na gene caused the production of better egg shape index (0.73) when compared to F and nana, ff genotypes. Eggs of frizzed and naked-neck locals also had significantly (P < 0.05) better Haugh unit, percent shell, percent albumen and percent yolk than the normal feathered counterpart. It is therefore reasonable to incorporate the major genes frizzling and naked-neck in producing a locally-adapter commercial egg strain