The Growth Curve of Body Weight in Mixed-sex Rock Partridges (Alectoris graeca) Kept in captivity

Abstract

Rock partridge (Alectoris graeca) can be domesticated for meat and egg production poultry. This study was carried out to obtain the growth curve model of body weight (BW) in mixed-sex Rockpartridges using non-linear regression of Gompertz (G), Logistic (L)and Richards (R) models. The computer program of CurceExpert 1.4. was used in this study to calculate the growth parameters of asymptotic weight (A), maximum growth rate (MGR), inflection of weight (IW), inflection of age (IA), coefficient of determination (R 2 ) and mean squared error (MSE). Study showed that all models have similar R 2 value but the lower MSE value was showed in R model. Hence, the R model can be used to predict the BW in mixed-sex rockpartridges from hatching to adult age accurately. In conclusion, the A, IW and IA values in rockpartridges with all models were 442.57 -513.25 g; 188.69-221.29 g and 5.48-6.69 weeks respectively.