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There are three main breeds of goat in Nigeria: The West African Dwarf (WAD), the Red Sokoto and the Sahel. Goats are renowned for their hardiness and can survive in most environments. The goats sampling was carried out from farms and markets across different states in Nigeria, according to the geographical distribution of the breeds published by Blench (1999). This experiment was carried out to analyse morphological variability among Nigerian goats. A total of 318 goats spread across the three Nigerian breeds were used in the following populations (57 Sahel, 187 Red Sokoto and 137 West African Dwarf). Data were collected on body weight, linear body measurements and heat tolerance traits and were subjected to analysis of variance using the fixed effects of breed, sex and location. Results showed that breed, sex and location significantly (P

A total of 150 pure strain broiler chicks comprising 50 each of Arbor Acre, Marshall and Ross were used for this experiment which lasted 10 weeks at the Poultry Breeding Unit of the Directorate of University Farms (DUFARMS) of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State Nigeria. The experiment was carried out to make comparative analyses of growth response and genetic parameter estimates of some quantitative traits (Body weight and linear body measurement) in Arbor Acre, Marshall and Ross broiler chicken strains in South-West, Nigeria. Growth performance data was collected from week 3 to week 10 and analysed using the Generalized Linear Model. Marshall broiler chicken strain had the highest growth rate and better growth performance followed by Ross and Arbor Acre in terms of body weight and linear body dimensions. Marshall and Ross attained mean weight of 1964.50±43.10 g and 1913.02±41.05 g, respectively, which were superior (p < 0.05) to Arbor Acre 1831.63±36.28 g at 10 weeks of age. Marshall Broiler chicken strain also had the highest estimates of heritability for body weight 0.46±0.04, followed by Arbor Acre and Ross with estimates of heritability of 0.38±0.12 and 0.26±0.06, respectively. However considering the linear body measurements, none of the broiler chicken strains maintained high estimates of heritability from 3rd to 10th week.

This experiment was conducted to assess the effect of chicken genotype on the growth performance, feed intake and feed efficiency of the progenies resulting from pure, straight and reciprocal cross of Giriraja (Gr) and Alpha chickens. Data obtained on body weight, body length, breast girth, keel length, feed intake and feed efficiency were analyzed using general linear models analysis of variance. Generally, all growth traits and feed consumption characteristics were significantly affected (P < 0.05) by chicken genotype. Growth traits and feed intake increased as birds advanced in age. Giriraja X Giriraja purebred chickens had the highest body weight, breast girth, feed intake and feed conversion efficiency through out the experimental period. However, the progenies resulting from the reciprocal crosses of Alpha X Gr had significant higher body weight and keel. Also, the feed conversion efficiency of the reciprocal crosses were better than the dihybrid cross progenies. The results therefore suggest that the superiority exhibited by the Giriraja could be utilized to improve the growth performance of the indigenous chicken thereby speed up desirable progress in the improvement of the indigenous broiler line. Key words: Chicken, Crossbred, Feed consumption, Genotype, Growth trait, Purebred

The retail cuts, gut characteristics and morphology of rabbits fed with varying dietary fibre and digestible energy (DE) levels were measured in a 70-d feeding trial using 135 weaner rabbits. The experiment was designed as a 3 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments having 3 levels of dietary fibre (low, optimum and high) and 3 levels of DE (low, optimum and high). The rabbits were allotted to 9 dietary groups consisting of 15 rabbits each. Main effect of fibre and DE showed that dressing out percentage (P < 0.05), chilled carcass weight (P

Improvement in fertility is possible through gene assisted selection. Cattle fertility and genes underlying it should be thoroughly studied and exploited to find solution to declining cattle fertility. Reprimo (RPRM) gene is a pleiotropic gene involved in suppression of cancer, regulation of mitotic cell cycle, cell cycle arrest and regulation of survival. Comparison of protein tertiary structures is important in inferring functional characteristics of new proteins. This study used computational approach to identify some fertility functions of bovine RPRM gene using motif prediction and protein structure comparison. Amino acid sequences of bovine RPRM gene and some other cattle fertility genes were retrieved from GenBank. Motifs in the amino acid sequence of bovine RPRM gene were predicted using PROSITE software. The domain structure of bovine RPRM protein was predicted using simple modular architecture research tool (SMART). Protein tertiary structures (3D structures) of bovine RPRM gene and other cattle fertility genes were predicted with Phyre 2 software. To have structural and functional similarity, it has been found that protein structure after superimposition should have Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) value less than or equal to 2A. The protein 3D structures of other cattle fertility genes were superposed against the protein 3D structure of bovine RPRM gene using SuperPose web server and the proteins with RMSD value of 2A or less were predicted as proteins with similar functions and structures as bovine RPRM gene. The predicted motifs (N-glycosylation site, N-myristoylation site, and cAMP and cGMP-dependent protein kinase phosphorylation site) and protein structure comparison revealed that, bovine RPRM gene and bovine growth hormone gene have the same fertility function with alpha carbon and backbone root mean square deviations of 1.94 A and 1.81 A, respectively. It follows therefore that other fertility functions of bovine RPRM gene included sexual maturation, steroidogenesis, gametogenesis, gonadal differentiation and gonadotrophin secretion which are the functions of growth hormone gene. Keywords : Reprimo gene, fertility, growth hormone gene, motifs, root mean square deviation

Morphological features of chicken genetic resources must be carefully identified and considered in developing breeding strategies. The study was carried out to determine the frequencies of morphological features in indigenous chickens of South-Western Nigeria, using Lagos, Ogun, Osun and Oyo States as case study. Five major chicken markets (Mushin in Lagos State, Itoku and Ipokia in Ogun State, Olu-ode in Osun State and Molete in Oyo State) were used as study locations and three thousand, three hundred and thirteen chickens were observed in the five locations. Ipokia had the highest number (1,549) of chickens and Molete had the least (307) number of chickens. The traits observed included: feather structure, feather distribution, feather morphology, plumage colour, ear lobe colour, skin colour and shank colour. The data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics and inferential statistical analysis was also done for the results using chi-square test. It was observed that for those traits that recorded significant variation, there had been selection for these traits due to the high market value attached to them by attaching preference to some of its variants which were observed. Knowledge and well documentation of the potentials of indigenous chickens can help provide crucial information for a comprehensive breeding policy and full utilization of the animal. Keywords : Characterization, conservation, indigenous chickens, morphological features