Improving the Final Liveweight and Growing Ability of TETRA-H a Dual Purpose Chicken Type by Using a New Experimental Sire Line

Our study was carried out with the pure, crossed and reciprocal crossed off spring of TETRA-H hybrid, a coloured slow-growing broiler genotype which was developed in the 1980’s by Babolna TETRA Ltd. In this project the potential of a new, improved sire line was also investigated. Experiments were carried out in the Poultry Test Station of the Kaposvar University in 2008 - 2010. In the first stage, growing ability of TETRA-H and a commercial genotype (standard control=Shaver Redbro) had been compared. In stages two and three the LL line, which was previously used as sire line, the newly selected sire Line EE, and the off spring came from the combination of those lines have been centrally tested. A total number of 6453 birds were used. The following traits were investigated: live weight, body composition evaluated by CT, carcass yield, meat quality, etc. The positive impact of the newly developed sire line (EE) in their off spring was confirmed. Lower slaughter weight of the F1 off spring has improved by 10.1-10.8%, making the newly developed hybrid highly competitive on the market. Furthermore, the crossing method was incompetent (LL♂xEE♀ or EE♂xLL♀) in the birds live weight and growing ability