|
Nutritional
and Genetic Approaches for Improving Guinea Fowl Production Efficiency
S.
Nahashon, N. Adefope, A. Amenyenu, D. Wright, and L. Payne
Cooperative
Agricultural Research Program
Seminar Series
Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN
February 12, 2003
The
guinea fowl is sold all year round in supermarkets and served as
delicacy in fancy restaurants throughout the world, including the United
States. Indeed in the last ten years guinea fowl production as a meat
bird has gathered momentum in the United States. As a result, there is
considerable opportunity for small-scale farmers and poultry producers
to engage in guinea fowl production as a profitable enterprise. Guinea
fowl production is however expensive owing to their poor growth rate and
efficiency of feed utilization. While most poultry improvement programs
are directed towards chickens and turkeys, the guinea fowl has been
least studied and understood. This report entails initial approaches
sought to improve guinea fowl production efficiency. Success in this
endeavor will not only depend on meeting nutrient requirements of the
current gene pool of the guinea fowl, but also through genetic
improvement, in part, through selection of rapid growing birds that will
utilize feed efficiently to minimize production cost. Objectives of the
current report were to: 1) evaluate genetic homogeneity between guinea
fowl and Chickens, and 2) assess the optimal level of dietary crude
protein and metabolizable energy for growing French guinea keet
broilers.
To meet objective 1, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)
and simple sequence repeats (SSR) were used to estimate genomic
diversity within and between populations of chicken and guinea fowl. DNA
from ten birds of either sex was pooled within chicken and guinea fowl
populations and eight pools from each population were analyzed for
polymorphism. Ten each of arbitrary and simple sequence repeat primers
were used to amplify DNA fragments using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).
The amplified fragments in both species ranged in
molecular weight from 200 to 2650 base pairs and a total of 56 fragments
in chicken and 59 in guinea fowl were amplified. Average band sharing
frequency was higher within chicken and guinea fowl populations (0.90 to
0.98 and 0.89 to 0.98, respectively) than between the two populations
(0.00 to 0.46). These findings reveal high genetic diversity between
chicken and guinea fowl while high genetic homogeneity exists within
chicken and guinea fowl populations.
To
meet objective 2, three hundred day-old French guinea keets were
assessed for their dietary crude protein (CP) and metabolizable energy
(ME) requirements from hatch to eight weeks of age (WOA). In three
replicates, experimental diets comprising 3050, 3100 and 3150 ME kcal/kg
diet each in combination with 21, 23 and 25% CP were fed from hatch to
four (0-4) WOA. At 5-8 WOA, dietary ME and CP levels were adjusted to
3100, 3150 and 3200 kcal/kg diet and 19, 21 and 23%, respectively. The
body weight gain (BWG) of keets fed 3100 and 3150 ME kcal/kg diet were
not different, but were 6% higher (P < 0.05) than those of keets fed
3050 ME kcal/kg diet at 0-4 WOA. Keets on 3200 ME kcal/kg diets also
exhibited 6% higher BWG and lower feed conversion ratios (FCR) than
those on 3100 and 3150 ME kcal/kg diet at 5-8 WOA. French guinea keet
broilers will therefore utilize more efficiently diets containing
3100-3150 ME kcal/kg diet and 23% CP at 0-4 WOA, and 3200 ME kcal/kg
diet and 21% CP at 5-8 WOA.
Return
to Seminar Series
|
