Research Note: Heterosis for egg production and oviposition pattern in reciprocal crossbreeds of indigenous and elite laying chickens

Yuanmei Wang; Yanyan Sun; Aixin Ni; Yunlei Li; Jingwei Yuan; Hui Ma; Panlin Wang; Lei Shi; Yunhe Zong; Jinmeng Zhao; Shixiong Bian; Jilan Chen

doi:10.1016/j.psj.2022.102201

Research Note: Heterosis for egg production and oviposition pattern in reciprocal crossbreeds of indigenous and elite laying chickens

Poult Sci. 2022 Dec;101(12):102201. doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2022.102201. Epub 2022 Sep 24.

Authors

Yuanmei Wang¹, Yanyan Sun¹, Aixin Ni¹, Yunlei Li¹, Jingwei Yuan¹, Hui Ma¹, Panlin Wang¹, Lei Shi¹, Yunhe Zong¹, Jinmeng Zhao¹, Shixiong Bian¹, Jilan Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Animal (Poultry) Genetics Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China.
² Key Laboratory of Animal (Poultry) Genetics Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: chen.jilan@163.com.

Abstract

Heterosis has been widely utilized in chicken breeding to improve economically important traits. However, few studies focused on revealing the factors contributing to egg production heterosis. In this study, White Leghorn and Beijing-You chickens were used as parental breeds to generate purebreds (WW, YY) and reciprocal crossbreeds (WY, YW) to characterize heterosis for egg production traits including age at first egg (AFE), clutch traits, oviposition pattern, and egg quality traits. Results showed that egg number until 35 wk of age (EN35) was higher in crossbreeds than the average of purebreds (P < 0.05) and exhibited positive heterosis of 4.03% and 2.84%) in WY and YW respectively. Crossbreeds commenced laying earlier than the average of purebreds (P < 0.05) with negative heterosis of -1.24% and -0.92% for WY and YW respectively. Moreover, EN35 had negative correlation with AFE (r = -0.85) and positive correlation with average clutch length (ACL) (r = 0.48) and maximum clutch length (MCL) (r = 0.66). However, negative heterosis for ACL (-19.62%, -16.51%) and MCL (-22.88%, -18.97%) were obtained in WY and YW, respectively. This may be due to the positive heterosis for number of pauses, which was highly correlated with ACL (r = -0.68) and MCL (r = -0.74). The crossbreeding improved the oviposition pattern. Percent egg laying that occurs between 7:00 and 14:00 was 91.50% (WW), 68.28% (YY), 76.87% (WY), and 79.68% (YW) in the experimental populations. On the other hand, oviposition interval (OI) had negative heterosis in crossbreeds and was negatively correlated with EN35 (r = -0.60). Positive heterosis for egg weight of 2.63% and 3.94% and yolk weight of 4.74% and 6.07% were observed in WY and YW, respectively. Taken together, egg production related traits did not contribute equally to EN heterosis. The AFE and OI exhibited significant correlation with EN indicating that they would be important drivers for EN heterosis.

Keywords: clutch traits; egg number; egg quality; heterosis; oviposition pattern.

MeSH terms

Animals
Chickens / genetics
Female
Hybrid Vigor*
Hybridization, Genetic
Oviposition*
Phenotype