ANBAR JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES

Abstract

The present study was used at the poultry farm on quail flock (Coturnix Japonica), (78 family).The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic and phenotypic parameters (heritability, genetic and phenotypic correlations) depending on qualitative Traits of eggs (egg weight, yolk weight, albumin weight, yolk diameter, yolk to albumin ratio), and to study the effect of season and hatch effects. The study also included genetic evaluation of certain sires according to progeny data. Results obtained can be summarized as: The overall means of the qualitative traits of eggs were 8.95 (g),21.07 (ml) , 3.14 (g) , 4.08 (g) ,0.69 for egg weight, yolk and albumen diameter, yolk and albumen weight, yolk to albumin ratio respectively. Highly significant (p≤ 0.05) effects of season on egg quality traits, and the study showed no significant of hatch factor on all studied traits.
Heritability of egg quality traits for the three months were for yolk weight ,yolk diameter and albumen weight, yolk to albumen ratio respectively,(0.19,0.19 ,0.18 ), (0.21,0.22,0.20),(0.13,0.15,0.19),(0.19,0.17,0.22).The genetic and phenotypic correlation among different studied traits were highly significant .The highest value was (0.82),(0.94) between egg weight and albumen weight, egg weight and yolk diameter for third month, and (-0.58) or (-0.56) between yolk to albumen ratio with albumen weight for first month, and the least values was (0.01) between egg weight for second month and egg mass for first month. Wide range of breeding values for certain traits was observed indicate the presence of additive genetic variance that could be used in selection programs. The estimated values of genetic and phenotypic correlation among egg quality traits highly significant of third month compared with first and second months.