Open Access
Copyright: The authors. This article is an open access
article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) which permits unrestricted use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly
cited.
Original Research
3.
Frequency of different shell color and its effect on
the fertility and hatchability in Black rock,
Gramapriya and Vanaraja breeds of chicken -
Abhay Kumar, Keshab Das, K. Mukherjee, A. Bharti,
A.K. Singh
Vet World. 2012; 5(10): 594-598
doi:
10.5455/vetworld.2012.5
94-598
Abstract
Aim: A
study was undertaken to assess the effect of shell
color on the fertility and hatchability in three
different breeds of chicken viz, Black Rock,
Gramapriya and Vanaraja maintained at Government
Poultry Farm, Durg (Chhattisgarh).
Materials and
Methods: A total of 180 eggs from each breed
(Black rock, Gramapriya and Vanaraja) were studied
in each trial and total three trials were conducted.
All the eggs were individually marked. Eggs were
divided into Brown, Light Brown and Creamy White.
Eggs were candled twice during incubation i.e. on
7th and 18th days. Fertility percent was calculated
by number of fertile eggs divided by total numbers
of eggs set for incubation multiplied by 100.
Likewise hatchability was calculated on TES (total
egg set basis) and FES (fertile egg set basis) by
the formulae Data were analyzed by chi-square test.
Results: The findings shown that the overall
average for shell color among the three breeds,
brown shell color (46.98%) was found to be most
frequent as compare to light brown (43.02%) and
creamy white (10.00%) colors, respectively. The
fertility percentage among three different classes
of shell color of eggs irrespective of breeds or
batches highest pooled mean was in brown shell color
(90.80%) followed by light brown (85.22%) and creamy
white (83.33%). Whereas, on total egg set (TES)
basis the hatchability percentage irrespective of
breeds or hatches were 73.72 for brown, 67.00 for
light brown and 52.47 for creamy white shell colored
eggs, respectively and the pooled hatchability on
fertile egg set (FES) basis, percentage followed
same trend as in the case of hatchability on TES and
brown shelled eggs group had higher hatchability
rate with 81.19 percent followed by light brown
(78.62%) and creamy white (62.96%), respectively.
Conclusion: It is concluded that dark colored
eggs had higher fertility rate and also hatched at
higher rate than did light colored eggs.
Keywords: Black Rock, Fertility, Gramapriya,
Hatchability, Shell color, Vanaraja.