HERITABILITY OF PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION TRAITS IN COLORED SYNTHETIC BROILER BREEDER CHICKEN OF ODISHA, INDIA

Breeding program in Odisha was started in 1994 to improve productivity of coloured synthetic broiler breeder chicken. The pedigree in the current study descended from 69 sires and 552 dams. Genetic parameters were estimated using sire and dam component of variances for various production and reproduction traits after necessary corrections for hatch effects were done. Heritability in male was found to be 0.232 +/- 0.615 for body weight at 5th week while it was high (0.718 +/- 0.129) in female. Age at first egg showed a low heritability (0.127 +/- 0.131) estimated from sire component and was 0.191 +/- 0.336 estimated from dam component of variance. Heritability for egg numbers up to 40 weeks laying was 0.624 +/- 0.439 when estimated from dam component of variance but, was negative from sire component. Heritability value for body weight at 20th week of age (male) was very high but it was low in females (0.035 +/- 0.134) when estimated from sire component of variance. Egg weight had a very high heritability value (0.644 +/- 0.265) but egg shape index had a low value (0.150 +/- 0.240) when estimation was from sire component. The comparative r(g) values among 5th week body weight, 20th week body weight, ASM, egg weight, egg production were significant (p < 0.05). These traits seemed to have additive effect of genes and utilizing them as selection traits would improve both egg production and growth performance of breeder broiler chicken.