Abstract:

Heterosis is the phenomenon that hybrids display better performance than the parental average. In this study, we aimed to quantify egg-laying performance, and heterosis for a complete diallel cross of Beijing-You and White leghorn chickens. Egg weight, egg production and egg quality traits were measured, and heterosis was estimated. We found significant heterosis for egg weight, egg number and age at first egg in the cross lines. Favourable heterosis was also observed for egg quality traits except albumen height and Haugh unit. Moreover, for egg weight, heterosis tended to be higher if Beijing-You was the sire line and White Leghorn was the dam line which was in contrast to egg production traits.