Vol. 11, Special Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
Deepti Kiran Barwa, Mohan Singh, K Mukherjee, AK Santra, Ashutosh Tiwari and Raina Doneria

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted on 1740 number of Kadaknath eggs to determine the effect of selection of eggs on the basis of egg weight (Small ≤40gm and Large >40gm) and hatch on hatchability, fertility and subsequent body weight. Chicks from these two groups were weighed from day old to twenty week of age. Egg weight of Kadaknath was found to be 40.72gm ± 0.10 while chick to egg weight percent came to 60.66%. Fertility and hatchability on total egg basis and fertile egg basis were observed 78%, 60.66% and 76.17%, respectively. Results indicated that there is significant effect of egg size and hatch on hatchability and fertility percentage. The large-sized eggs produced chicks with higher (p<0.05) hatch-weight than small-sized eggs and this difference was also seen in the subsequent body weight. Effect of hatch was also found significant on hatchability, fertility and body weight in the present study. It can be concluded that environment affects fertility, hatchability and body weight and making selection for heavy weight egg before incubation may produce chicks with higher body weight which persist upto 20week of age.