Body Weight Performance, Egg Production and Egg Quality Trait of Lohmann Chicken Genotype in Wachemo University Poultry Farm under Intensive Management System

Aim: This study was conducted to evaluate body weight performance, egg production and egg quality traits of Lohmann chicken genotype in Wachemo University.

Methodology: For the experiment, the Lohmann layer chicken in the University farm was used and SAS ver 9.4 was used to analyze the data. Body weight and egg production progress were evaluated at different times. A total of 200 eggs (100 at the end of 1st month and 100 at the end of 3rd month of egg lay) were brought to Hawassa University poultry farm laboratory to assess the egg quality traits. For the data analysis, SAS (Ver. 9.4) was used.

Results: The Lohmann chickens weighed 0.93kg at their entry to the university poultry farm and increased in to 1.34kg at end of first month of entry. In the farm, about 34.4%, 42.5% and 58.6% of the hens have laid egg until the end of first, second and third months of egg lay respectively; this indicates that the increasing trend of egg production of Lohmann chickens as age increase. Egg laying age difference has a significant effect (p<0.05) on egg weight, egg length, egg width, shell thickness, egg surface area and shell ratio. There was a significant difference in yolk weight, yolk diameter, albumen ratio and yolk index for the eggs collected from the Lohmann chickens at different age. Egg weight has the strong and positive correlation with egg length (78.6%), egg width (84.7%) and egg surface area (99.8%). Albumen weight is more correlated with albumen ration (64.2%) positively and yolk albumen ration (65.6%) negatively.

Conclusion: Poultry production could be influenced by many factors. Among the factors, age was evaluated in the current study; as age increased, the growth performance, egg production and egg quality traits improved.