ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2018, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (6): 1163-1168.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2018.06.008

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Relationship between Fat Deposition and Reproduction Performance of Beijing-You Chickens during the Late Stage of Reproductive Period

LI Yun-lei, XUE Fu-guang, XU Song-shan, BAI Hao, LIU Yi-fan, SUN Yan-yan, CHEN Ji-lan*   

  1. Key Laboratory of Animal(Poultry) Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
  • Received:2017-11-01 Online:2018-06-23 Published:2018-06-22

Abstract:

This study investigated the effects of fat deposition on reproductive performance of Beijing-You chickens during the late stage of reproductive period, aiming at providing data support to increase the reproduction efficiency. A total of 65 Beijing-You chickens of 43 weeks of age were selected. The daily egg production was recorded. The incubation performance and egg quality estimation were performed at 53 and 63 weeks of age, respectively. The animals were divided into high, medium and low abdominal fat content groups based on their abdominal fat yield estimated at 65 weeks of age, and the difference of egg number,egg quality and hatchability of egg were analyzed among different groups. The medium abdominal fat yield group produced 17.02% and 8.29% more eggs than the high and low groups, respectively. The hatchability of fertile eggs of the medium abdominal fat yield group was 4.70% and 10.10% higher than that of the high and low groups, respectively. Similarly, the hatchability of setting eggs of the medium abdominal fat yield group was 6.98% and 10.47% higher than that of the high and low groups, respectively. No significant difference on egg weight, yolk weight, shell strength and shell thickness were observed (P>0.05). The egg shape index of the high abdominal fat yield group was significantly higher than that of low group (P=0.05). The results suggested that manners should be taken to regulate the fat deposition during the late stage of reproductive period to gain better egg production, egg quality, and hatchability.

Key words: Beijing-You chicken, fat deposition, reproduction performance, egg production, egg quality

CLC Number: