Genetic Improvement of Egg Production and Associated Traits in Egg Type Japanese Quail

Abstract

Background: Demand for the Japanese quail eggs is increasing due to cheaper cost and alternative to chicken eggs. Development of a separate egg type of Japanese quail strains can fulfill the demand of egg production and nutritional security. With this background, genetic selection was carried out to improve egg production performances of egg type Japanese quail for six generations. Methods: Nandanam quail-3 was utilized as base population for the improvement of production performance in this study. Initially to strengthen the base population random breeding was carried out in Nandanam quail-3 followed by sire family selection for egg production in females and sib selection in males. The mating plan for producing replacement hatch was shift mating in individual cages. The day-old chick weight, body weight at different age, egg production and reproductive performance were recorded in all six generations. Result: The analysis of pooled data for fourth and sixth week body weight indicated a genetic gain of 0.60 g and 0.51 g per generation, respectively with an excellent coefficient of determination (0.92% and 0.93%). The per cent hen housed egg production from 6 to 46 weeks of age increased from 202 to 220 eggs during the course of selection. Linear regression analysis revealed that the increase was significant (P less than 0.01), with appreciable magnitude in positive direction (b=3.77) with excellent of goodness of fit (R2=0.97). Similarly, the hen day egg production during this period also showed significant (P less than 0.01) upward trend (b=3.17) over generations with the trend line showing excellent goodness of fit with observed values (R2= 0.96). The present study concluded that the multi stage selection can improve the body weight and egg production in Japanese quails despite the fact these traits are negatively correlated.