ASSOCIATION AMONG BODYWEIGHT, LINEAR BODY AND CARCASS TRAITS OF JAPANESE QUAILS
This was study was carried out to determine the phenotypic associations between body weight, linear and carcass traits of three strains of Japanese quail. A total of one hundred and eighty (180) day chicks of Japanese quails comprising of sixty Panda white (PW), Cinnamon Brown (CB), and Sigmond (SG) were used for the study. Data on body weight and linear body traits for each strain were collected forth nightly. Carcass traits were also measured on each strain. All phenotypic correlations were determined using pearsorn’s product moment correlation of SAS (2004) package. The results obtained revealed very high significant (p< 0.01) and positive phenotypic correlations between bodyweight and the linear body traits, which ranged from 0.676 – 0.799 (PW), 0.624- 0.976 (CB) and 0.518-0.947 (SG). There was no evidence of sexual dimorphism in the phenotypic associations for any strain due to strong, positive, and significant (p< 0.01) coefficients expressed by both male and female sexes. Strong, positive and significant (p< 0.01) phenotypic correlations also existed between live weight and carcass traits for the three strains. The values ranged from 0.752- 0.951 (PW), 0.839- 0.921 (CB) and 0.834-0.974 (SG). High, positive and significant (p< 0.01, (p< 0.05) associations between live weight and carcass traits were also observed for male and female strains of Japanese quail studied. The phenotypic correlations observed showed that improvement in any of the strain results to corresponding improvement in body weight and or live weight and vice versa. It can be concluded that the linear and carcass traits are good determinants of body weight and live weight and could be used to estimate their values.
KEYWORDS: Association, Body weight, Carcass, Strain, Traits.
