Effects of kinship matings on embryo losses and hatch-weight in japanese quails

Abstract

Inbreeding, which is the mating of related individuals, increases homozygosity and leads to depression, especially in traits with low heritability. In this study, parent-offspring, full-sibling and half-sibling mating groups were formed and their effects on embryo loss and hatch weight were investigated. In the study, a total of 2130 fertile Japanese quail eggs were used. Embryo losses were divided into three periods; early period (first 5-day), middle period (6-12th days) and late period (13-17th days). It was observed that mating groups affect all traits subject of this study (P≤0.0001). The lowest hatchability of fertile eggs was observed in dam-male offspring mating (DM), while the highest was observed in half-sibling (HS) and control (C) matings (P≤0.05). However, the highest hatch-weight were found in eggs of DM matings (P≤0.05). DM has also the highest embryo losses for all periods (P≤0.05). Most of the embryo losses, except the half-sibling group, occurred in the early period.

Keywords

• Inbreeding
• Poultry
• Mating system
• Incubation mortality

References

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