TITLE:
Heritability and Genetic Correlation of Niamey’s Local Chicken Growth (Niger)
AUTHORS:
Adamou Guisso Taffa, Salissou Issa, Chaibou Mahamadou, Nassim Moula, Johann Detilleux
KEYWORDS:
Bayesian, Genetic Correlations, Heritability, Local Chicken, MCMCglmm, Weight Gain, Niger
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Genetics,
Vol.12 No.4,
December
27,
2022
ABSTRACT: The exploitation of industrial strains of chickens
in the Sahelian climate of Niger is characterized by a decline in performance
and significant costs associated with their maintenance. In contrast, local
chickens are well adapted to these environmental conditions but with poor
production performance. Genetic selection of these
local chickens could improve their productivity. The first step is to determine if the genetic parameters of their growth are
high enough to ensure a successful selection strategy. To do so, weekly weights
of 69 parents and 119 offspring
were followed for 20 weeks. The heritability and genetic correlations of these weights were
estimated through the Bayesian approach using the MCMCglmm package on R software. At hatching, weights ranged from 23 to 25 g. At 20 weeks, these weights ranged from
1031 to 1052 g for females and 1308 to 1445 g for males. Heritabilities for
hatch weights at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 weeks of age were estimated to be 0.56, 0.31, 0.52, 0.53, 0.52 and 0.48 respectively and all
genetic correlations were positive. In particular, weight at 8 weeks of
age showed both good heritability (h2 = 0.52) and strong, positive genetic correlations with weights at older
ages. These results indicate that
genetic selection to improve weight at 8 weeks of age would be a good
strategy to improve the overall growth performance of these chickens.