THE EFFECT OF SEX AND GENETIC LINES ON THE SKULL DIMENSION FOR JAPANESE QUAIL

The current experiment was done in the poultry farm of the animal production department, college of agriculture - Kirkuk University, from (22/04/2022 to 22/07/2022), 120 unsexed chicks were used (White quail=40, Brown quail=40, and Gray quail=40), rearing on the cages, the diet and the water ad libitum when the flock reached 120 days of age 5 male, and female were chosen randomly to slaughter. Following the slaughter, the heads were gathered, boiled, and the characteristics of the skull were measured using a Caliper Vernier with an accuracy of 0.01 mm. There were significant differences in some dimensions, as the Pro. Sprameaticus of sequamosal bone was larger in the brown genetic line compared to the white one, which was smaller. This is also the case with Postorbital process, as for the other dimensions, there were no significant differences between the genetic lines. There were highly significant differences in many dimensions, where the female white quail excelled over the rest of the birds in the Cerebellar prominentia trait, and in the Exoccipital bone trait and Postorbital process, the male white quail excelled over the other birds. The gray female quail also excelled in the Postorbital process, Dorsal middle point of frontonsal structure, and Middle point of frontonasal structure Basilar tuberculum of basioccipital bone, over the other of the birds. As for Paraoccipital process, white males, gray males and females outperformed other birds. As for the other of the characteristics, there was no significant effect among the studied interactions.