PHENOTYPIC CORRELATION AND GROWTH RATE OF BODY WEIGHT AND LINEAR BODY CHARACTERISTICS OF MARSHALL AND ARBOR ACRE BROILER CHICKENS REARED IN A HUMID ENVIRONMENT, NIGERIA

Study on body weight and linear body parameters records of Marshall and Arbor Acre lines of broilers were obtained at 4 to 8 week and used to compare growth performance of the two lines of broiler as well as estimate the relationship among body weight and their linear relationship among body weight and their linear body parameters. 220 unsex day old chicks consisting of 110 each for Marshall and Arbor Acre strains of broiler were used for the research. The traits that were considered in this research work were body length, wing length shank length drumstick length and Kneel length. Body weights were varied significantly at 5, 6 and 7 weeks of age which ranged from 935.15 to 1583.22 for Marshal and 1136.57 to 1742.67 for Arbor Acre. Arbor Acre appeared superior to Marshall significantly (P<0.05) in their body measurement parameter in most weeks of age. Body weight had higher significant (P<0.05; p < 0.01) positive rp with the linear body parameter, which ranged from 0.523 (DSL) – 0.832 (BL) for Marshal and 0.542 (KL) – 0.843 (BL) for Arbor Acre. The rp among the linear body parameters in both strains of broilers were positive and ranged from moderate to high. The result of this recent research indicated that Arbor Acre could be a strain of excellent for rearing in the study location due to its superiority over Marshall strain in relations to growth performance. Most of the linear body parameters measured were very good estimators of body weight in both strains as well as each other, indicating that any phenotypic selection on one parameter will lead to improvement of the others.