Assessment of hatching traits of four different commercial broiler breeder strains: a comparison and its trends

A study was conducted to compare four commercial broiler breeder strains i.e. Arbor Acer (AA), Hubbard (HB), Hybro (HY) and Starbro (ST). Egg characteristics, hatchability, infertility and chick weights were evaluated. One hundered and sixty eggs/strain were used for measurement of egg characteristics and 600 eggs/strain were incubated to compare the hatching traits. AA had significantly lowest and HB had the highest egg weight and hatchability compared to all strains. After adjusting egg weight, HB had significantly highest yolk weight, yolk diameter, yolk height, albumen height and ST had significantly highest albumen weight and height. Lowest chick weight was in AA and HY. These results indicated significant strain variations. Negative linear regression was observed only for albumen weight, yolk and albumen height. Hatchability, infertility, dead in germ, dead in shell percentages showed significant differences among these broiler strains. On the basis of this study it may be concluded that HB has better hatchability results as compared to AA, HY and ST strains.