Evaluate the effect of the crossbreeding of Korean Native Pullets on growth performance and livability before the laying period

Korean Native Chicken (KNC) market field keeps enlarging by the increasing consumer interest on KNC due to the desired flavor, texture and healthy value of its meat. Despite the demand for native chickens increasing due to the requirement for diversification of consumers, making good KNC layer species to meet the demand of consumers is very limiting. It is necessary to secure and maintain the various the pure-line in order to improve production capability, but it is difficult due to the small share of the KNC pure-line industry. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to evaluate and compare the effect of the crossbreeding of 5 different KNC pure-line layers from hatch to week 16.

A total of 1000 one-day-old chicks were allotted to 10 cages per crossbreeding treatment with 10 birds per cage with a random basis then raised over 16 weeks. 10 treatments (YC, YD, YF, YK, CD, CF, CK, DF, DK, FK) are consisted of the crossbreeding by 5 pure-lines that consisted of one KNC (Y), two Korean Rhode Island Chicken (C, D), and two Korean White Leghorn Chicken (E, F). The body weight were measured biweekly from Day 1 to Week 16. Diets are provided with restricted feeding based on the measured body weight to stay near the recommended levels of the body weight suggested by The Korean feeding standard for poultry. Livability measured biweekly. All the measured data were analyzed for statistical significance at P< 0.05 using the one-way ANOVA technique of SPSS software (Version 26; IBM SPSS Statistics, 2021).

Body weight showed (P< 0.05) difference from Week 2 to 16 among 10 treatments. FK treatment showed a lower body weight among the 10 treatment during whole experimental period. On the other hand, YC treatment shows a significantly higher body weight from week 6 to 16 compared to the other treatment. However, All 10 treatment could not reached to the recommendation level of body weight based on the age during whole experimental period. The livability on week 16 shows the 94% from YC treatment to 79% from DF treatment which decreased from 95% on week 12 to 79% on week 16. FK treatment shows 90% livability on week 1 and shows 88% livability on week 16. CD, CF, DF, and FK treatment livability shows lower the 90% on week 16. Livability of the other treatments show 94% to 91% with constant or slight decreasing from hatched to week 16.

The results suggest that YC crossbreed is the best by showing the proper body weight which can reach the recommendation and showing good livability. Those results could be used as a database for further experiment for Korean Native Chicken layer experiment.

Key words: crossbreed, growing phase, Korean Native Chicken, layer.