Analyses of crossbreeding parameters for juvenile body weight in broiler chicken

Abstract

A complete diallel experiment involving four parent broiler lines namely CSML, WSML, CSFL and NNL was conducted to estimate crossbreeding parameters for body weight at different age groups. Body weight data on 1451 birds of 16 genetic groups at 2, 4, 5 and 6 weeks body weight were recorded. Purebred effect (PE), general combining ability (GCA), maternal ability (MA), specific combining ability (SCA) and sex linked effect (SLE) were highly significant for body weights at all age groups. NNL had the highest body weight and showed the highest estimates of PE and GCA while the CSFL showed the highest MA in all age groups. The results showed that relative rankings of estimates of most of the crossbreeding parameters for different lines did not change over time. Further, positive estimates of PE and GCA of lines and SCA and SLE of crosses showed increasing trend from 2 to 6-week, while positive estimates of MA of lines recorded decreasing trend with increased age. In general, results indicated that both additive and nonadditive genetic effects are important for body weight traits and therefore estimation of crossbreeding parameters would help in identifying the lines that would combine well for production of high yielding commercial broilers. © GSP, India.