Growth Traits Characteristics of the Progenies of Crosses between Hubbard Broiler Strain and Fulani Ecotype Chicken in the Derived Savannah Zone of Nigeria

This study was carried out to evaluate growth traits characteristics of progenies from crosses between Hubbard Broiler (HB) strain and Fulani Ecotype (FE) chickens. Data were collected on Body Weight (BW), Body Length (BL), Breast Girth (BG), Wing Length (WL), Shank Length (SL), Femur Length (FL), Beak Length (BkL) and Neck Length (NL) from day old to 12 weeks of age. Results indicated significant (P < 0.001) effect of genotype on fertility and hatchability of eggs. Percentage fertility across the genotypes were; 71.00%, 74.75%, and 52.12%, while hatchability were 71.80, 76.83, and 64.10% for HBxHB, HBxFE, and FExFE, respectively. There was no significant (P > 0.001) difference in hatch weight of the chicks across the genotype. Genotype significantly (P < 0.001) affected body weight, and it ranged from 82.32±0.703g to 2538.33±17.638g for Hubbard Broiler strain, 54.05±0.618g to1604.67±27.810g for cross bred Fulani ecotypechicken and 40.98±0.269g to 831.25±0.382g for pure breed Fulani Ecotype chicken. Other growth traits (SL, BL, WL, BG, BKL, NL and FL) were significantly (P > 0.001) affected by age of the birds across genotype as it increased as they advanced in age. Also all the growth traits were significantly (P > 0.001) affected by genotype with Hubbard broiler having the highest value in all the weeks. Cross bred Fulani Ecotype chicken performed relatively similar to pure bred Hubbard broiler in most of the linear body parameters measured while the pure bred Fulani Ecotype chickens were considerably lower in performance when compared to their cross bred counterparts. It can be that concluded crossbreeding FE chickens with exotic could bring about considerable significant improvement, therefore further studies should be extended to other generations of the crosses.