GENETIC RESPONSE OF PRODUCTIVE TRAITS OF THE NIGERIAN HEAVY LOCAL CHICKEN ECOTYPE USING SELECTION INDEX FROM FOURTH TO SIXTH GENERATION

📄 Project Abstract

Nigeria is a country with a large human population and this population needs to be adequately fed with high quality animal products such as egg, meat and milk for good health and increased productivity. The need for improvement in the overall livestock industry, therefore, becomes obvious when viewed against this background of our ever growing population. With a population of 166 million birds (FAO STAT 2007) in Nigeria, the poultry species stand out among the cheapest and highly affordable protein sources for the populace. Nigeria still imports exotic species of livestock including poultry and pigs. The shortage of poultry meat led to the importation of exotic stock which has resulted in the dilution of our indigenous gene pool and neglect of research and improvement of our indigenous gene pool (Ndofor-Foleng et al., 2010). Also our earlier researchers have concentrated on crossbreeding programmes of the local chicken species with the exotic chicken, with a view of improving their bod...