Productive, Reproductive Performance and Biochemical Parameters of Short-Term Divergently Selected Japanese Quail Lines and Their Reciprocal Crosses

The current study investigated the effect of short-term selection for four week body weight (bw) on performance of divergent lines of japanese quail and their crosses. the mean of bw at hatching time, one, two, three and four week oldand bw at sexual maturity time, age at sexual maturity, number of eggs (from 50 to 100 days old), mean of egg weight, percentage of fertility and hatchability in each group (two lines and their crosses) were compared to explore the maternal and heterosis effects. the results indicated that there were significant difference between two lines for all the measured productive and reproductive traits (p < 0.01). but the heterosis effects were not significant in all traits except age at sexual maturity, egg number, percentage of fertility and hatchability (p < 0.01). also, the reciprocal effect (maternal effect) reported to be significant for all measured traits except for the bw at four-week old in males and females, bw at sexual maturity and egg weight in females (p < 0.01). moreover, the heterosis and reciprocal effects did not significantly differ in biochemical constituents of plasma (p < 0.01). in addition, the difference between two parental lines was not significant in all biochemical constituents of plasma but triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein (hdl). these constituents were markedly in high weight line located higher than low weight line (p < 0.01).