Feasibility Analysis of Breeding Indexes of Feather Compact Ratio in Three-yellow Chickens

The experiment studied the differences of feather thickness,mature feather proportion,primary feather length,tail length among Three-yellow chickens’ families and individuals,and verified the breeding efficiency based on feather compact ratio. The results revealed that there were significant differences in feather thickness,mature feather proportion and primary feather length among families and individuals. The feather thickness was negatively correlated with primary feather length and tail length. The mature feather proportion was not significantly related with primary feather length and feather thickness,but significantly related with comb height. Divergent selection for feather thickness,mature feather proportion,primary feather length and tail length revealed high efficiency for the direct selection of mature feather proportion and primary feather length, and low efficiency for selection of feather thickness. The paternal half sib estimation showed that the heritabilities for feather thickness,mature feather proportion,primary feather length and comb height were 0.198,0.339,0.491,0.549.