Study of Maternal Immunity in Relation to Some Productive Traits in Chickens

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to determine the concentration of maternal antibody (IgY) in blood serum and egg yolk of three, control, high and low IgY antibody lines of Sinai and Silver Montazah local chickens in relation to some productive traits in chicken. The results were discussed and summarized as follows: 1-Sinai strain had significantly higher IgY antibody concentration than Silver Montazah strain of chickens, being 4.68 vs 4.22 mg/ml in hen blood serum, 4.11 vs 3.46 mg/ml in egg yolk, 3.09 vs 2.66 mg/ml in hatched chicks serum and 48.00 vs 38.41 mg/egg yolk total, respectively. 2-Highly significant differences (P<0.01) among lines, the high lines harvested the highest IgY level and control lines occupied intermediate level, where the low lines had the lowest IgY level in both strains of chickens. 3-The transferred (%) of IgY were 66.24 vs 62.88 (%) from dams to newly hatched chicks in Sinai and Silver Montazah strains of chicken respectively. 4-The IgY (%) transferred from dams to newly hatched chicks were 67.21 vs 61.89 (%) for control lines, 76.47 vs 71.67 (%) for high lines and 58.17 vs 52.06 for low lines of Sinai and Silver Montazah strains of chickens respectively. 5-There were strong positive highly significant simple correlation coefficients between IgY concentration in the layers and egg yolk (r=0.994 vs 0.934), between layers and chicks (r= 0.937 vs 0.879) and between egg yolk and chicks (r= 0.930 vs 0.908) in Sinai and Silver Montazah strains of chicken respectively. 6-The birds high in IgY antibody levels had significantly higher percentages of fertility, hatchability, livability, early age at sexual maturity, and higher egg production traits as compared to low birds in IgY antibody concentrations. 7-The present results, explained that the IgY antibody can be used as genetic marker to improve some productive traits in chickens.