Characterisation of the phenotypes associated with body growth and egg production in local chickens from three agro-climatic zones of Kenya

Abstract

We aimed to characterize body growth and egg production phenotypes associated with local chickens in Kenya from different ecological zones. Data was collected from a total of 296 chickens spread across three agro-climatic zones: Lamu Archipelago (semi-arid coastal), Mt. Elgon catchment (humid highlands) and Lake Turkana basin (arid pastoral). The analysis of variance showed significant interactions between shank length, body length and live weight for meat production and the number of yolks per egg with a strong significance of 4.34e-13, 2e-16, <2e-16, and 0.01 respectively. However, we did not find any significant relationship between the numbers of eggs laid per hen per clutch, the number of eggs seated on per hen per clutch and the number of eggs hatched per hen per clutch, in the various agro-climatic zones. Despite being the lightest and small bodied, chickens from Lake Turkana which had an average mean body weight (g) of 1190.96 ± 358.16 produced more eggs (9.42eggs ± 6.87eggs) than the heaviest and big bodied (Lamu Archipelago) which had an average body weight (g) of 2198.74 ± 656.32 and produced an average of 8.29 eggs ± 5.95 eggs per clutch. Mount Elgon catchment chickens had an average weight (g) of 1974.75 ± 572.92 and produced an average of 8.75 ± 7.77 eggs per hen. Lamu Archipelago had eggs with the highest number of double-yolked eggs with a frequency of 89%. Generally, we revealed relevant production traits for meat and egg production among indigenous chickens from different ecotypes in different regions that historically were migration points of entry for humans and livestock into Kenya. We propose further genetic studies on the Lamu and Turkana Chicken ecotypes since these two are from regions in Kenya that have previously been understudied.