Comparative Evaluation Of Koekoek, Improved Horro And DZ White Chicken Breeds For Different Traits of Growth Performance From the Day-old to Age at First Laying at Holetta Research Centre, Ethiopia
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Date
2025
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Genetic improvement of indigenous Horro and synthetic breed development of DZ White chicken breeds have been undertaking since 2008 at DZARC. The progenies of these breeds at different generations have been evaluated in different areas under different farming systems and management conditions. Through continuous selection and improvement, the generations of the breeds are now reached 17th and 14th for Improved Horro (IH) and Debre Zeyit (DZ) White parent stocks, respectively. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate the growth and early reproductive performances of recent generations of DZ White and IH breeds compared with Koekoek (KK) breed during the different weeks of age. This study was undertaken at HARC poultry research farm. A total of 270 day old chicks, 90 from each breed obtained from DZARC were used for the experimental study. The three breeds were distributed randomly in three pens with three replications using CRD design. Data on feed intake, body weight, body weight gain, feed conversion efficiency, mortality rate, age at first laying as well as egg weight at first laying parameters were collected, analysed and interpreted. The GLM procedure of SAS 2004 version 9.0 was used to analyse the data. Linear model that breeds, replication and age in weeks were fitted as independent variable except for replication for age at first laying and egg weight at
first laying. On the other hand, feed intake, body weight, body weight gain, feed conversion efficiency, mortality rate and age at first laying were assumed as
dependent variables. The results showed that there was significant difference (p<0.05) between breeds on feed intake, body weight, daily weight gain and age at first laying traits at different growth stage. Feed intake and body weight were increased as age in week increases. The highest total body weight gain was recorded by Koekoek (1562.8±0.00g) followed by DZ White breed (1544±0.00g) and (1200±0.00g) IH for the entire study period. The highest body weight (1603g) was recorded by KK and followed by DZ White (1585.13g) and IH (1239g) at the end of the experimental period. Analysis of variance showed that highest daily weight gain was observed during 16-18 weeks of age for all breed. Keokeok breed gained slightly higher weight as compared to DZ White and, IH recorded the lowest weight gain.Improved Horro was the highest (1.84) overall feed conversion ratio followed by Koekoek (1.66) and DZ White breeds (1.65). The DZ White breed recorded significantly (P<0.0001) take lower days (129 and 133 days) to reach 5% and 10% age at first egg laying and followed by IH (136 and 140 days) and KK breeds (140 and 142 days). The DZ White breed produced heavier egg weight of 39.58g, 42.9g and 46g at first, 5% and 10% egg laying periods, respectively. This study revealed that all the three experimental breeds were grow faster, achieved better body weight gain, better feed intake and conversion efficiency, and reached early for age at first egg laying period. In conclusion, further research should be undertaken to evaluate the production and reproductive parameters of the three breeds at the later age, as well as on farm evaluation condition should be executed to promote these improved
synthetic breeds under small holder farmers.
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Keywords
Age at first laying, Body weight gain, DZ White, Growth performance, Holetta, Improved Horro