Assessment of carcass and egg quality traits in Gramapriya female parent line (PD-3) chicken under intensive production system

Unnikrishnan, K., Nath, A.P., Preetham, V.C., Krishna, D. and Rajkumar, U. 2023. Assessment of carcass and egg quality traits in Gramapriya female parent line (PD-3) chicken under intensive production system. Indian Journal Poultry Science, 58(3): 301–306. The present study was aimed at evaluating the carcass and egg quality traits of Gramapriya female parent line (PD-3) chicken. The slaughter data collected on 40 PD-3 birds at 15 weeks of age and egg quality data collected on 300 eggs at 40, 52 and 64 weeks were utilized for the present study. The sex had significant (P=0.05) effect on live weight, breast proportion, blood yield and spleen. Cocks were heavier and hen had significant (P=0.05) higher breasts. All other carcass parameters had no significant variation among the sexes. The live weight was 1551.92±30.91 g in male and 1164.8±20.63 g in female birds. The dressing percentage was 73.57±0.27%. The mean proportion of cut-up parts i.e., breast, legs, wings and back were 15.54±0.26, 19.31±0.15, 10.20±0.12, 22.01±0.33 %, respectively. Egg quality traits were varied significantly (P=0.05) between the age groups. The albumen length, albumen width, yolk height, albumen weight, yolk weight increased with age, while shape index decreased with age of the bird. The mean egg weight, shape index, albumen weight, yolk weight, Haugh unit score, shell weight and shell thickness were 57.95±3.02 g, 82.27±0.82, 23.46±0.26 g; 15.52±0.09 g, 83.49±0.6, 5.37±0.03 g and 0.379±0.001 mm. The study concluded that PD-3 parent chicken line had fair carcass and egg quality traits across the ages. The ideal carcass and egg quality traits in PD-3, the female parent line will aid in improving the carcass and egg quality traits in terminal cross, the Gramapriya chicken variety.