Morphological Studies on the Indonesian Native Chicken

Abstract

In investigations of the Indonesian native livestock in 1977, 1978 and 1981, a total of 212 native chickens consisting of 164 males and 48 females, was measured for 8 different body parts and their body weights. The principal component analysis was applied to the discrimination of this body measurement. Results of the principal component analysis indicate that: 1) There were no clear differences in the body size and shape between 8 chicken populations in Indonesia except the game type. 2) The game type of the male Madura and the same type of the male South Sulawesian called Bangkok composed the largest group in size, based on the discrimination afforded by the size vector (PC1). Some external genetic characters of 5,845 native chickens were recorded at 11 provinces in Indonesia. From the results obtained, the following values were calculated: The frequencies (q) of genes controlling these morphological characters, the admixture (Q) of European breeds, the native gene content in the present-day native chicken population and the frequencies in the native chicken population not attributable to the inflow from European breeds (q(N)). These results indicate that the Indonesian native chicken holds about 50% native genes on the average.