Heritability and Genetic Correlation of Niamey’s Local Chicken Growth (Niger)

The exploitation of industrial strains chickens in the Sahelian climate Niger is characterized by a decline performance and significant costs associated with their maintenance. In contrast, local are well adapted to these environmental conditions but poor production performance. Genetic selection could improve productivity. first step determine if genetic parameters growth high enough ensure successful strategy. To do so, weekly weights 69 parents 119 offspring were followed for 20 weeks. heritability correlations estimated through Bayesian approach using MCMCglmm package on R software. At hatching, ranged from 23 25 g. weeks, 1031 1052 g females 1308 1445 males. Heritabilities hatch at 4, 8, 12, 16, weeks age be 0.56, 0.31, 0.52, 0.53, 0.52 0.48 respectively all positive. particular, weight 8 showed both good (h2 = 0.52) strong, positive older ages. These results indicate that would strategy overall chickens.