HAEMOGLOBIN AND ALBUMIN GENOTYPES OF NIGERIAN INDIGENOUS CHICKEN IN DOMA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the genotypes and genes frequency of the haemoglobin and albumin of Nigerian chicken using a base population from which the samples used undergone random mating and had not been selected. Blood samples were collected from 120 chicken and used for genotyping. Genotype and gene frequencies were calculated using Hardy Weinberge equation. Result obtained for chi-square analysis showed no significant (P>0.05) variation between the observed and the expected frequencies for both haemoglobin and albumin types. For the genotyping, majority of the genotypes were homozygous AA for hemoglobin and homozygous BB for albumin while heterozygous genotype (AB) came second to the two varying dominant homozygous in both instances. Two alleles A and B and three genotypes AA, AB and BB were observed for both haemoglobin and albumin. The genotypic frequencies of Hb AA, AB and BB were 0.60, 0.25 and 0.15 for haemoglobin and 0.17, 0.30 and 0.53 for albumin. Allelic gene frequency for A and B were 0.725 and 0.275 for haemoglobin and 0.325 and 0.675 for albumin. The prevalence of certain genes at their respective locus is suggestive of their importance to the adaptability, survival and production of these chicken in their natural harsh tropical environment. This could be used for future studies involving the use of more blood protein markers with a larger sample size. This may pave way for marker-assisted selection in the genetic improvement of indigenous chicken especially when they are correlated with productive economic parameters.