FERTILITY AND HATCHABILITY OF F1 CROSSES OF EXOTIC AND NIGERIAN HEAVY ECOTYPE LOCAL CHICKEN BIRDS REARED IN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA

Abstract

This research was conducted to determine the fertility and hatchability of FI crosses of Exotic and Nigerian Heavy Ecotype Local Chicken reared in University of Nigeria Nsukka. A total of 72 mature birds ( 8 cocks and 64 hens) were randomly selected from the four sire families: Ammo cocks and Isa brown hens (AC x IBH), Ammo Cocks and Heavy Ecotype Local Hens (AC x HEH), Heavy Ecotype Cocks and Isa Brown Hens (HEC x IBH) and Heavy Ecotype Cocks and Heavy Ecotype Hens (HEC x HEH). The experiment lasted for 6 weeks during which the cocks were trained for semen collection, artificial insemination, egg collection, egg setting and hatchery. The Percentage fertility, hatchability and the production performance were estimated and subjected to analysis of variance in a completely randomized design. The result obtained showed that there were significant (p<0.05) differences in both percentage fertility (85.7867 ±1.17553) and hatchability (71.9467 ±1.04566) in which (AC x HEH) performed best among all the sire families. The result also revealed that there were significant (p<0.05) differences in egg number, average egg weight and the number of pauses. The (HECx HEH) was the best in egg number (88.33 ±0.333) and number of pauses (8.00 ±0.577) while (AC xIBH) was the best in average egg weight (54.00 ±0.577) followed by the (AC x HEH) which has 52.67 ±0.333. It could be concluded hence that crossbreeding local birds with a proven exotic breed increases the percentage fertility, hatchability and average egg weight.