Background: This study was conducted to estimate the genetic parameters of body weight and some colour traits in seventh generation (G7) index selected Nigerian Heavy Local Chicken Ecotype (NHLCE) progenies at point of lay to 12 weeks. Methods: 5 sires and 12 hens were used to generate the progenies used for the experiment. Traits measured included weekly body weight, egg colour, beak colour and feather colour. Data collected were subjected to one way analysis of variance in a Paternal half sib analysis using Animal model of SAS (2003). Four weeks body weight measurements, egg colour, beak colour and feather colour for 5 sires ranged from 1.29±0.05 1.54±0.07; 2.55±0.02 to 4.00±0.02; 2.45±0.02 to 4.83±0.02 and 1.73±0.02 to 4.58±0.04 respectively. Result: The new Duncan’s multiple range test shows that sire families are similar (p greater than 0.05) in the body weight and beak colour, but significantly differed (p greater than 0.05) in the egg colour and feather colour. The heritability estimates of mature body weight for week 3 was medium, while estimates of heritability for weekly mature body weight for weeks 1, 2 and 4, egg colour, beak colour and feather colour of NHLCE were low heritability. Low h2 of traits suggest that progeny and pedigree selection could be employed for improvement of the egg colour, beak colour and feather colour of NHLCE. The study showed positive genetic correlations between beak colour and egg colour, negative genetic correlations between beak and feather colour. This means that no decision can be taken in isolation as the selection of one trait will have consequences on other traits.

This study was carried out to estimate heritability for body weight, as well as the genetic correlations between these traits of the Nigerian inbred Local Chicken (NILC) reared at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). The study lasted for 2 months, and the heritability and genetic correlations of the traits were estimated using Animal Model Design of the SAS 2004 statistical procedure. The direct heritability for body weights of NILC were 0.51, 0.76, 0.89, 0.22 and 0.20 at weeks 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. In the present study, high heritability estimates (0.51, 0.76 and 0.89) were recorded for weeks 1, 2 and 4, respectively, but medium for weeks 6 and 8. Genetic correlations between 1BW and 4BW, 8BW, 4BL, 8BL, 4SL, 8SL, 4CG, 8CG were 0.984, 0.763, 0.953, 0.735 0.72, -0.952, 0.989 and -0.481, respectively. Estimates for genetic correlations ranged from -0.481 to 0.989 among the traits considered in this study. High and positive genetic correlations were recorded for 1BW and other traits except for 8SL and 8CG, which had negative genetic correlations. High estimates of heritability found in the present study indicate that additive genetic variances exist for these traits. Selection for body weight at 1 or 2 weeks of age, therefore, is likely to result in a genetic gain in the NILC. Furthermore, the high and positive genetic correlations observed indicate that selection for one trait will result in a correlated response on the other traits compared in the study.

This study was carried out from a retrospective study of all undergraduate and postgraduate researches conducted on chickens in the Department of Animal Science of some Western and Eastern universities (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Ibadan, and National Animal production institute, NAPRI, Zaria) in the northern part of Nigeria. The breeding strategies in some world-renowned breeding companies were also studied. The study further compared the various methods utilized for the creation of egg-type chicken by the researchers at the universities and institute with the methods adopted by successful breeding companies for the course of genetic improvement of a pure breed popularly known as the broiler or layer breed. The parameters used for evaluation included scope of breed of chicken (exotic or local), statistical model, heritability, and correlation, variance, mating systems, selection methods, uniformity of research environment, breeding methods (conventional and biotechnology), and emphasis of breeding goals. Finally, the study attempts to recommend a cheaper and a practicable plan to create a layer pureline. There is no gainsaying that that the bottleneck of creating layer breed of chicken in Nigeria has been exhaustively evaluated in this study. The challenges comprises technical, financial, and inertia, and ineptitude of leadership elicits poor funding cum environment lacking the resilient approach and technical know-how ranging from inappropriate models to methods. We recommend firm breeding policy and adequate international funding for the proper alignment with the world chicken breeding strategies to help position Nigerian poultry industry to deliver its SDGs predicted goal of providing food security for the global populace by 2050.

The Study was aimed at evaluating the contribution of the Nigerian’s livestock to global GHG emission and proffer efficient ways to mitigate emission from its livestock sector, while seeking for alternate options suggested by FAO. The report of US and EU research on GHG mitigation provided information and best practices for this study. The US research implicated livestock as one of the major human activities that was responsible for 24% contribution to global warming. Another report by FAO reported that the emission intensities of livestock sector to global warming ranges from beef, sheep, goat, dairy, pig, egg chicken and meat chicken. Although the global livestock emission was high, the proportion of the Nigerian livestock population as a component of the global livestock and its genetic composition indicates that Nigeria’s livestock has an insignificant contribution to the global livestock population. Consequently, its GHG emission is equally infinitesimal with respect to the global GHG emission. The small population size of Nigerian cattle, sheep, goat and swine represents 0.93%, 1.9%, 3.2% and 2% GHG emission of the world cattle, sheep, goat and swine. The study uncovered alternate sources of emission like high loads of burning oil and gas produced by bad roads and bad vehicles, plastic waste (crude oil waste), deforestation and fertilizers as factors that play key role in GHG emission in Nigeria. Moreso, the Study considered some FAO climate change adaptation solutions particularly, Institutional changes (International collaborations); Shift from the usuals; Planting of trees; Increased mobility of resources (saw-mill, paper production, plastic waste recycling); On-farm and off-farm diversification (automobile, road construction); as well as Reconversion (fruit juice production, Wine press, vegetable oil companies). The study showed that the Nigerian Livestock climate change mitigation project will require a total expenditure of three trillion, one hundred and thirty million, nine hundred thousand naira (#3,130,900,000.00) only. At the end of the third production cycle (3years) a total of eighty-one trillion, four hundred and sixty million naira (#81,460,000,000.00) will be raised from the project. A net profit of seventy-four trillion, five hundred and seventy-eight million, one hundred thousand naira is expected at the end of 3 years. The livestock mitigation project promises stupendous profit. The high profit from this project can fund Nigerian’s Annual budget for than 10 years. The cost and profit analysis of the Nigerian Livestock global warming mitigation plan revealed that the Livestock and its Alternate project is indeed a splendid project that qualifies for a milch cow. It represents efficient project that will ensure exponential growth of the economy, - Expedite the diversification of Nigerian economy. - Raise Nigerian Manufacturing index. - Capable of eliminating poverty and hunger. - Expedite Nigeria’s move to Meet Sustainable development goals (SDGs) - Raising Nigeria’s per capita income and consumption. - Wiping out Nigeria’s indebtedness of 33.1 trillion naira to World Bank. - Building Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, expand Nigeria present export value of 4% as it reduces Nigeria import value from 96% of all its trade. - Increase Nigerias contrbuton to Africa’s trade from the present value of 4% - Change Nigeria from the list of under developed to a civilized nation. - Generation of jobs for a great proportion of its working age.

The rural communities in Nigeria and other developing countries, hitherto suffer protein malnutrition, early child mortality and poverty. Animal breeders have addressed similar challenges with the aid of genetic parameters, efficient breeding decisions, genetic improvements in milk, beef and cheese production of the exotic cattle, which ranks first in the gross domestic product of the agricultural sector of most civilized countries. These breeding tools were employed to develop the world breeds of cattle, which is estimated to be about 100 breeds. Nevertheless, estimates of genetic parameters of traits of the Nigerian N’dama and Muturu crosses is porous. A total of 300 records of the closed population of the Nigerian cattle herd, comprising of crosses of Muturu and N’dama cattle, were used for this research. This study was conducted from December 2018 to June 2019 to estimate the variance components and heritability for birth weight (BW) and weaning weight (WW), and the genetic and phenotypic correlations between these traits in N’dama and Muturu crosses at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) cattle herd. The study lasted for six months, and the heritability and genetic correlation of the traits were estimated using the Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) method of the SAS mixed model. The result revealed high estimates of direct heritability (0.39 and 0.62) for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. High and positive (0.84) direct genetic correlation existed among both traits.

The absence of an indigenous pure chicken breed in Nigeria has a serious negative impact on both the global and domestic economy, as well as per Capita protein consumption and income of their farmers. Moreso the poultry global gene pool is about to loss some fitness traits, due to the fact that they it was raised from very few population. With only 3 poultry breeding companies namely Aviagen, Hendrix and Cobb vantress principally supplying world exotic chicken the importance of a new chicken breed originating from an entirely different gene pool, like Nigerian chicken gene population can never be over emphasized. It is therefore pertinent that the Nigeria's rich natural resources (local chicken) be genetically modified to a Pure Elite Layer Breed to meet FAO 's prediction of Nigeria's potential for global food security Interestingly FAO has predicted the significant role of Nigerian livestock resources in global animal protein insecurity FAO (2022). Responding to this global call Nigerian local genetic breeders at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, in the past decade began selective breeding of the Nigerian local chickens through estimation of genetic parameters of growth and reproductive traits among the inbred chicken ( Ohaghenyi et al 2025, Ohaghenyi et al 2021, Nwankwo 2023, Okoye 2023, Ohagenyi and Okochi 2023, Ohaghenyi and Ezeugwu 2021.). Moreover (Ogbu et al 2019, Agbo et al 2 Corollary the comparative study of the inbred chicken and layer chicken will both provide a concrete information on the genetic progress made so far among the inbred chicken. The objective of this study is the genetic evaluation of reproductive traits of layer birds and Awka Elite chicken (genetically improved inbred chickens) raised in South Eastern Nigeria. The foundation stocks was grouped into 2 categories the layer birds and the genetically improved inbred chicken. They where fed with stater crumbs from day 1 to 8 weeks.l, and they where fed with finisher feeds from 8 to 16 weeks. And we continued with layer mash. Eggs were collected daily with egg crates and stored in a cool and airy room . Parameters that was measured include Reoroductive Traits and Egg internal Qualities The experiment was carried out using Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with the statistical mode] as follows; Xij= μ + Ti + Σij A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine whether there were significant differences in Reproductive Traits and Egg internal Quality among the different chicken genotypes. The analysis compared the mean values of the experimental groups. It is evident from the findings of this study that the Awka Elite Inbred chicken was superior to the Exotic Layer in Albumen weight and Haugh unit. One Sire family (H62) of the Awka was superior to Exotic egg, however the average egg weight of EXOTIC eggs was 1.1g heavier, though not significant (p>0.05).The superior performance of the H62 family implies more homogeneous meat genes as a result of mating of related ancestors over several. Hence more suitable for development of broiler lines.The INBRED achieved similar weight with: more albumen (+1.4g); Larger yolk (+1.0g); Heavier shell (+0.3g). This suggests Awka Elite eggs may be more nutrient-dense per gram. The external egg quality namely Shell thickness and weight were nearly identical. Egg shape (length/width) showed minor variation, which was not meaningful. This research concludes that Selective breeding of local chickens, which expedited significant gains in performance,(growth and egg) traits has resulted in the origin of a new species, known as the Awka Elite Breed. This research breakthrough suggests that Nigeria now has the potential to develop elite poultry, hence reducing reliance on imported Parent stock. Partnership: It is recommended that Partnership from the US, UK, China and Africa to enable the Researchers supply this superior Pure chicken breed to Commercial and Rural farmers all over the world. .018, Udeh et al 2024 ) selectively bred the heavy ecotype chicken.