Poultry Studies 2022, Vol 19, Num, 1     (Pages: 007-010)

Effects of Kinship Matings on Embryo Losses and Hatch-Weight in Japanese Quails: Half Sibling Matings are Safe

Hakan Erdem 1 ,Türker Savaş 1

1 Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Animal Science, 17020, Çanakkale, Turkiye DOI : 10.34233/jpr.1119246 - Inbreeding, which is the mating of related individuals, increases homozygosity and leads to depression, especially in traits with low heritability. In this study, parentoffspring, full-sibling and half-sibling mating groups were formed and their effects on embryo loss and hatch weight were investigated. In the study, a total of 2130 fertile Japanese quail eggs were used. Embryo losses were divided into three periods; early period (first 5-day), middle period (6-12th days) and late period (13-17th days). It was observed that mating groups affect all traits subject of this study (P≤0.0001). The lowest hatchability of fertile eggs was observed in dam-male offspring mating (DM), while the highest was observed in half-sibling (HS) and control (C) matings (P≤0.05). However, the highest hatch-weight were found in eggs of DM matings (P≤0.05). DM has also the highest embryo losses for all periods (P≤0.05). Most of the embryo losses, except the half-sibling group, occurred in the early period. Keywords : Inbreeding Poultry Mating system Incubation mortality