Study on productive performances and egg quality traits of exotic chickens under village production system in East Shewa, Ethiopia

The study was conducted to determine productive performances and egg quality traits of Isa Brown (IB), Bovan Brown (BB) and Potchefstroom Koekoek (PK) under village production system in Ada’a and Lume districts of East Shewa, Ethiopia. A total of 180 randomly selected smallholder farmers were included in the study from six purposively selected Peasant Associations (PAs) from the two districts. Information was obtained on average eggs/year and age at first laying, while hen’s body weight was measured directly during survey and egg collection. The average egg production/year was 276.1, 266.32, and 187.04 eggs for IB, BB and PK, respectively. The average age at first laying was 160.5, 165.5 and 153.3 days for IB, BB and PK, respectively. The strain BB was superior for egg weight, yolk height, albumen height (AH), albumen weight, Haugh unit (HU) and eggshell thickness than IB and PK. The IB was found to be superior to BB and PK for yolk weight, whereas PK was superior to IB and BB for yolk colour. In this study, the egg quality traits obtained from these layers was a good quality at village level, while to better conclude on the average number of egg /bird/year, it may need further study through considering the amount and types of feed supplement by farmers and proper recording on the number of eggs laid.   Key words: Exotic chicken, productive performances, egg quality traits.