Evaluation of various selection procedures in a commercial strain of WLH

The data for the present study was taken from 1136 pullets of 199 dams and 58 sires from three hatches of a commercial strain of WLH maintained by a commercial poultry breeding organization. Efficiency of various selection procedures viz. selection based on phenotype (SP), selection index (SI) and best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) was determined for faster improvement of the overall genetic worth of the flock. Evaluation of three methods of selection indicated that SI and BLUP methods were consistently superior to SP method for age at sexual maturity, body weights at 18 and 32-weeks of age, 40-week egg production and 35-week egg weight. However, the degree of superiority of SI and BLUP over SP method was reduced in case of 32-week body weight and egg weight as their heritability values were higher as compared to other three traits. Spearmen rank correlation coefficient of best ranking with ranking obtained from three methods for various economic traits of WLH revealed that the greatest differences among ranking of animals by the three methods were found for egg production and smallest differences among ranks were found for egg weight.