COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SEMEN CHARACTERISTICS, EGG FERTILITY AND HATCHABILITY OF NAKED NECK, FULANI ECOTYPE, ISA BROWN AND THEIR F1 CROSSBREDS

Abstract

The study focus on the comparative assessment of semen characteristics, fertility and hatchability of naked neck, Fulani ecotype, Isa brown and their F, reciprocal crosses. A total number of fifteen sires and sixty dams belonging to three different strains of chicken were used for the study which comprises of five sires and twenty dams of naked naked, Fulani ecotype and Isa Brown chickens. These birds were involved in the reciprocal mating and data were collated on the semen characteristics of the sires (semen volume, sperms motility, morphology, concentration, pH, live and dead sperms), egg set, fertility and hatchability of the eggs after the reciprocal crossing. Significant (P<0.05) effect values of semen volume (0.30ml) was obtained for naked neck Isa brown crossbred (NNIB), sperm motility (90.65%) for Fulani ecotype Isa brown crossbred (FEIB), sperm morphology (89.35%) for Isa brown, sperm concentration (68.90) for FEIB, % live sperm (88. 70%) for FEIB while least values of sperm pH (10.40) and % dead sperm (11.31%) was obtained Jor FEIB. The results showed that Fulani ecotypes had highest eggset (100%), fertile eggs (93.10%), hatchable eggs (100%), lowest infertile egg (6.90%) and dead in shell (0.00%) while the combine effect favoured FEIB in terms of eggs set, fertile eggs, infertile eggs, hatchable eggs and dead in shell than NNIB genotype. The present results indicated that FEIB genotype performed better than other genotypes group in terms of semen quality while Fulani ecotype was favoured in respect of fertility and hatchability.