Genetic variances, heritabilities and maternal effects on body weight, breast meat yield, meat quality traits and the shape of the growth curve in turkey birds.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Turkey is an important agricultural species and is largely used as a meat bird. In 2004, turkey represented 6.5% of the world poultry meat production. The world-wide turkey population has rapidly grown due to increased commercial farming. Due to the high demand for turkey meat from both consumers and industry global turkey stocks increased from 100 million in 1970 to over 276 million in 2004. This rapidly increasing importance of turkeys was a reason to design this study for the estimation of genetic parameters that control body weight, body composition, meat quality traits and parameters that shape the growth curve in turkey birds.

Results

The average heritability estimate for body weight traits was 0.38, except for early weights that were strongly affected by ma

SUBMITTER: Aslam ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3039623 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature