Effect of frizzling on growth and carcass traits in chicken

Effect of frizzling gene on early growth was studied by using a resource population of 171 F1 (79 frizzle + 92 normally feathered) birds, progenies of 10 specialized frizzle broiler line sires and 10 normally feathered White Leghorn dams. The traits studied were body weights at weekly interval from day zero to 8th week of age. Significant effect of hatch and sex on body weight was observed. The frizzling seems to have significant effect on body weight, specially in later weeks of age. i.e. 3rd week onward and the frizzle birds were significantly heavier than their normal feathered counterparts. The beneficial effects from frizzling condition on body weight may possibly be due to better productive adaptability of frizzle birds at higher ambient temperature as compared to the normally feathered birds. Frizzle birds yielded significantly higher percent eviscerated (70.53%) yield as compared to the normally feathered birds (68.09%), which seemed to be a direct consequence of significantly lower feathering losses (7.44%) in Frizzle birds as compared to the normally feathered birds (93.6%). The differences for other processing losses, yields and percent cut up parts were non-significant between the frizzle and nonnally feathered birds.