Heritability of Body Weight in the Domestic Fowl

BODY weight of broilers has been an important trait for a considerable number of years. More recently, breeders of egg production strains have become interested in adult body weight; the trend seems to be toward a small-bodied layer in order to reduce the amount of feed required for body maintenance. Heritability estimates aid the breeder in choosing the most efficient selection method and breeding System. With body weight being an important trait to all breeders, it seems desirable to consolidate all heritability estimates of this trait, as well as to report those that have been calculated at the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station during the past four years. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Heritability estimates of body weight, as found in the literature, are summarized by age and method of estimation in Table 1. A simple, arithmetic average of these estimates by ages show that the heritability of body weight at broiler …