Crossing and Selective Breeding to Improve Productive and Reproductive Performances in TANTA G-1 and Mamora Egyptian chickens

This study was conducted to investigate the progress in productive performances of two indigenous chicken genotypes, TANTA G-1 and Mamora line (RBC), which have been crossing and selected since 2015 three generations data on body weight from hatch to 8 weeks, as well as age at sexual maturity (ASM), egg production (EP) from 36-42 weeks of age, and first egg weight (EW) and body weight at sexual maturity (BWSM) (BWSM) At 8 weeks of age, the average LBW of the TANTA G-1 and RBC lines was 866.45g vs. 558.75g (G1), 1006.50g vs. 555.10 g (G2), and 1068.93a g vs. 551.25g (G3), indicating significant differences for both lines. Body weight at sexual maturity were 3155.16 gm ,1525.00gm G1, 3137.35gm ,1526.24gm G2and 3119.91gm ,1526.83 gm for Tanta G-1 and Mamora chickens respectively. In the first three generations, the TANTA G-1line's age at sexual maturity was 172 days, compared to 157 days for the RBC line, and the TANTA G-1line's first egg weight (45.46gm) was higher than the RBC line's (34.84gm). Overall mean fertility of Tanta G-1 chicken eggs was 87.92 %, whereas the fertility of Mamora chicken eggs was 88.94 %. This difference was significantly statistical. Overall mean hatchability across total incubated and viable eggs was determined to be 76.15 and 75.03 %, for Mamora and Tanta G-1 respectively. The findings show that the cross and selective breeding programme has achieved great success in boosting the mean of economically important features in Egyptian chickens.