Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Hanumant L Kanadkhedkar, SV Kuralkar, Sanjeev Kumar, MG Thorat, SJ Manwar, SG Deshmukh, Pravin Bankar, Chirag Chaudhari, Manjari Pandey and Amit Kumar

Abstract:
White leghorn chicken is a promising egg producing breed in the country and undergoing continuous genetic improvement program for higher egg production. It is prudent to periodically assess the growth and production status and their genetic and phenotypic parameters, which are population specific and are crucial for any improvement program and formulation of breeding strategies. Therefore, this study was undertaken to evaluate an annual (64 weeks) egg production strain, IWI of WLH, which was undergoing selection for higher annual egg production for more than 35 generations until 2013 and maintained through rotational breeding thereafter. The population was maintained at institute farm, ICAR-CARI Izatnagar Bareilly and used as dam line to produce one of the popular crosses, namely CARIPRIYA. Data was collected on different growth and layer economic traits on 121 pullets from single hatch and analyzed to determine various estimates. The least square means of layer economic traits, viz., age at sexual maturity (ASM), egg weight at 28^th week (EW28), 40^th week (EW40) and at 64^th week (EW64) of age, egg Production up to 40^th (EP40) and 64^th week (EP64) of age were estimated as 144.12±1.85 days, 48.17±0.36 g, 50.11±0.43 g, 55.65±0.53g, 109.21±1.92 and 228.17±3.02 eggs, respectively. Their heritability estimates were 0.40±0.43, 0.06±0.39, 0.43±0.44, 0.72±0.46, 0.20±0.41 and 0.22±0.41, respectively. The least square means of body weights at 16 (BW16), 40 (BW40) and 64 (BW64) weeks of age were 964.17±15.70 g, 1312.61±19.97 g and 1378.14±19.17 g, respectively. Their heritability estimates were 0.79±0.46, 0.73±0.46 and 0.30±0.42, respectively. The study revealed that the layer economic traits in IWI strain of WLH were maintained over past generations through rotational breeding. The population can be exploited in genetic improvement program, as and when needed, and also in developing improved layer crosses.