Quantitative traits in chicken associated with DNA fingerprint bands.

Abstract

In an unselected control line of a selection experiment in chicken the following traits were evaluated: number of eggs, average egg weight, egg mass, age at first egg, body weight at 20 weeks, body weight at 40 weeks, feed consumption and feed efficiency (feed consumption/egg mass). Data and blood samples of 143 females of the same age were available for analysis. The animals were ranked for each trait according to the phenotypic performance adjusted for hatch and laying house effect rather than the breeding value. DNA mixes of the top 5 and the bottom 5 hens were compared to each other by DNA fingerprinting. The most striking differences could be observed with the probe pV47 in the mixes for body weight at 20 weeks and the feed efficiency. In the following the study focused on feed efficiency. Five groups of 10 hens each, around quantiles 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, were analyzed with respect to the occurrence of 7 particular DNA fingerprint bands. The association of the groups' mean feed efficiency with the groups' band frequencies was assessed by linear regression. For 2 bands significant regression coefficients (P < 0.005) were found.