Genetic Effect on Some Productive and Reproductive Traits of Black and Brown Quails Under Hot Conditions

Abstract

This study was carried out at the Animal Production Research Centre at Kuku, Khartoum North, Khartoum State, Sudan, during (April to July 2016).This study compared between Black and Brown Japanese quail (strains) Growth and production performance under Sudan conditions. Feed intake (FI), body weight (BW), body weight gain (WG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), energy efficiency ratio (EER), age at first egg (AFE), body weight at first egg (BWFE) and liveability were determined. With the exception of liveability all other parameters were not affected by bird strain, however the Black Japanese quail had higher values than the Brown in most of the studied parameters. (FCR) for quails ranged between 2.36 to 6.99, (AFE) was determined as 9.91 week in Black strain whereas in Brown strain at 9.79 week. The overall mean of (BWFE) was 208.82 g for Black strain and 212.25 g for brown strain. Also the restricted Maximum likelihood Computer Programme was used to estimate heritability values for body weight at hatch (BWH) and at 2 (BW2), 3 (BW3), 4 (BW4), 5 (BW5), 6 (BW6), 7 (BW7) and 8 (BW8) weeks of age, age at first egg (AFE) and body weight at first egg (BWFE). The phenotypic correlations among these parameters were also determined. The results revealed that heritability of BW, were 0.60, 0.51, 0.34, 0.32, 0.23, 0.11, 0.27 and 0.06 at hatch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 weeks respectively. These results indicate that heritability decreased as the age increased, whereas heritability estimates for AFE and BWFE was 0.53 and 0.15 respectively. Phenotypic correlations between live body weights at different ages were positive and very highly significant (P<0.001). These results indicated that the growth in quails can be improved by direct selection for high body weight.