Some quantitative genetic traits in Vietnamese indigenous Noi chicken from 0 to 28 days old

The aim of this study is to characterize some quantitative traits of Noi chicken, one of the Vietnamese famous native breeds for meat quality and fighting, at the stage of 0-28 days old. Therefore, 742 chicks were used to measure, record, analyze and evaluate on these traits. As results, there was significant difference in observation traits among stages of age (P=0.000). Interesting, the wings (+64.88%) and keel lengths (+58.83%) rapidly developed within the first week of life, followed by the most of other dimensions, especially breast diameter (+31.85%), thigh diameter (+71.17%) in the second week of age. An increase in the size of the measurements was due to development of the skeleton at observing time points along the experiment. However, there was strong development of muscle tissue in the second week of life as rate of the breast and thigh diameter was greatest. Noi chicks consumed amount of feed of 16.54 g/bird/day and gained a weight of 6.98 g/bird/day. Thus, their feed conversion ratio was 2.37 at the stage of 0-28 days old. Perhaps a direct positive relationship between observed traits and age were randomly established according biological characteristics of animal. This work provided initial benchmarks of Noi chicks for further studies.