Aim:The present study was conducted to investigate the important climatic variables affecting production and reproduction in a broiler breeder flock.Materials and Methods:The experiment was conducted for a period of 1 year on colored synthetic female line male and female poultry birds. 630 female progeny and 194 male progenies from 69 sires and 552 dams produced in four consecutive hatches at an interval of 10 days were used for the present study. Each of the seven, body weight and reproduction traits were regressed with nine environmental variables. Initially, the data were subjected to hatch effect and sire effect corrections through best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) method and, then, multiple linear regressions of environmental variables on each trait were applied.Result:The overall regression was significant (p<0.01) in all traits except 20 week age body weight of females. The R2 value ranged from 0.12 to 0.90 for the traits. Regression coefficient values (b values) for maximum temperature and minimum temperature were significant (p<0.05) on 5th week age body weight of males. Similarly, evaporation and morning relative humidity (RH) was significant (p<0.05) for 5th week age body weight of females. Almost all b values were significant (p<0.05) for egg production up to 40 week age. The b values representing rainfall, morning RH, afternoon RH, sunshine hours, and rainy days were significant (p<0.05) on bodyweight at 20 week age. All environmental variables except maximum temperature and minimum temperature were significant (p<0.05) on body weight of females at 20 weeks of age. Age at sexual maturity was regressed significantly (p<0.05) with evaporation, afternoon RH whereas, egg shape index was regressed significantly (p<0.05) with a maximum temperature, evaporation and afternoon RH.Conclusion:The result indicated that various environmental variables play a significant role in production and reproduction of breeder broiler poultry. Controlling these variables in adverse weathers may increase production.

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The genetic information obtained from the mitochondrial DNA D-loop region has paramount importance in understanding the evolution of closely related individuals, and designing proper breeding or conservation plans. The present study was conducted using partial D-loop sequences of three local poultry populations from Odisha, India. The partial D-loop sequences were found to be highly polymorphic having 164 polymorphic sites with 89 singletons and 75 parsimony informative sites. Furthermore, 25 insertion and deletion sites were observed. High genetic diversity was observed within three local chicken populations. Highest genetic difference was observed between Gujuri and Kalua population (0.2230) followed by Gujuri and Hansli (0.199) and Kalua with Hansli (0.166). The pairwise mismatch distribution showed that all populations are of constant size over time. Phylogenetic tree analysis indicated that the said three populations were close to the referred population of China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Japan than Aseel and Kadaknath (Indian native breeds).

The genetic architecture of 10 rural poultry populations in two distant tribal districts of Mayurbhanj and Kalahandi of Odisha state in India were studied for 15 quantitative and 11 qualitative characteristics through a field survey. Analysis of dispersion was conducted to test the simultaneous significance of mean differences in above characteristics and was found to be highly significant (p is less than 0.01). Cluster-I (Khairi and Kabri), cluster-II (Hansli, Gujuri, Dumasil, Dhabla, Kalua and Khadia), cluster-III (Jhinjiria), and cluster-IV included Chitri populations. The maximum D2 value was found between Hansli and Kabri (513.825) followed by Gujuri and Kabri (410.312) while minimum D2 value was observed between Khairi and Kabri (1.50). The average inter cluster distance was high between cluster-I and cluster-II (17.218) and also between cluster-II and IV (17.207). The genetic variation can be confirmed using biochemical and DNA markers which will help to obtain phenotypically pure local fowl genetic resources for future selection and breeding.