Multi- trait analysis of body weight in the crossbred population of Japanese quail using statistical Bayesian method

Body weight is one of the important economic traits in the breeding program of broiler species. The genetic parameters of each population are affected by different environmental conditions. Therefore, each breeding activity in a poultry is required to estimate these parameters. The aim of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters of body weight from hatch to 45 days old of the crossbred population of Japanese quail by using of 1794 records of body weight from 70 males and 72 females. Estimation of genetic and non-genetic parameters was performed using a multi-trait model including additive, non-additive and maternal effects via Gibbs sampling. Estimated heritability for body weight in hatch, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and 45 days’ was 0.16, 0.11, 0.12, 0.14, 0.15, 0.18, 0.20, 0.19, 0.17 and 0.17, respectively. The range of heritability for maternal genetic, the ratio of maternal permanent environmental, dominance, and epistasis variance to phenotypic variance varied between 0.32-0.39, 0.23-0.36, 0.04-0.10, and 0.03-0.13, respectively. The highest value for genetic correlation was estimated between body weight in 35 and 30 days (0.94) and the lowest value was between hatching weight and 5 days (0.16). The results showed that the maternal and non-additive effects must be fit into the model for accurate estimation of genetic parameters, and the selection of quail for body weight of 25 days due to its high correlation with 45 days and its high heritability could result in a good genetic improvement in the body weight of 45 days.