Effect of Parental Live Weight on the Reproductive Performance of Japanese Quail (Cortunix cortunix japonica)

The data used for this study consisted of 3,195 records on parental live weight obtained from 400 females and 200 males. The records were further categorized into four mating groups (LM x LF, HM x HF, LM X HF and HM x LF) based on the parental live weight. Egg weight, Egg length, Egg circumference and body weight from day old to 7 weeks were measured on eggs and chicks from the four crosses and the data was analyzed using SAS (2003). Percent fertility, hatchability, hatch and mortality was estimated and compared over the four crosses using GLM procedure. It was observed from this study that the mating group (LM X HF) with the highest egg weight had the highest egg length and egg circumference. Significant differences exist statistically (p<0.05) in all the crosses for post hatching weight at week 2 to week 7 with LM x LF having the highest performance. Progressive increase in body weight with increase in age in all the four crosses was also observed. Percent fertility and hatchability in LM x LF and LM X HF crosses were not significantly different from each other but were significantly different (p<0.05) from HM x HF and HM x LF crosses. High mortality was obtained from HM x HF and HM x LF crosses. This study concluded that light male and light female crosses gave chicks with better post hatching performance and lowest mortality rate than all other crosses.Keywords: Parental live weight, Egg weight, Hatchability, Fertility, Crosses, Japanese quai