PREDICTION OF BODY WEIGHT FROM MORPHOMETRIC TRAITS IN INDIGENOUS NORMAL FEATHERED CHICKENS OF NIGERIA

Abstract

This study was conducted on indigenous normal feathered chickens at the Poultry production unit (PPU) of the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries, Potiskum, Yobe State. Predicting equations for estimating body weight from morphometric traits at different ages were established wth Sixty matured Normal Feathered Chickens (NFC) comprising 50 females and 10 males were used as parent stock to generate progenies for the experiment. After quarantine, the foundation population were divided into ten breeding groups; each group containing six birds of five hens and one cock. The experiment lasted 18 months (between June, 2018 and October, 2019). Performance data of body weight (BW), chest girth (CG), body length (BL), thigh length, (TL), shank length (SL), shank circumference (SC), wing length (WL) and keel length (KL) of 123 progenies generated were taken and analysed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS, Version 9.1). Simple linear regression used to predict body weight from body measurements revealed that, based on coefficient of determination (R2 ) values, chest girth had the best prediction of body weight at weeks 4 (R2 =0.42) and 8 (R2 =0.64) while shank length had the best prediction at weeks 12 (R2 =0.74), 16 (R2 =0.81), 20 (R2 =0.78) and 24 (R 2 =0.77). The study concluded that body weight could be predicted with high degree of accuracy using chest girth and shank length at early and advanced ages.