Growth performance of royal purple and white guinea fowl varieties and their crosses under an intensive management system

Commercialization of guinea fowl production in many countries is growing and the demand for their meat is high. The study evaluated the growth of crossbred royal purple x white variety relative to purebred royal purple and white varieties. Twenty pure-bred white, 20 purebred royal purple and 20 cross-bred keets were housed together in 4 houses resulting in 4 replications. The keets were fed broiler starter crumbs from day old to 4 weeks of age and thereafter broiler grower pellets for 16 weeks. Body weights of individual keets were measured fortnightly from 4 to 16 weeks of age. There were no significant differences between body weights of males and females of the three varieties at all ages. There were also no significant differences in body weights among females of the three varieties from 4 to 16 weeks of age. Males of the three varieties displayed non-significant differences in body weights from 4 to 10 weeks of age. Royal purple males were significantly heavier than their white counterparts from 12 to 16 weeks of age. There were, however, no significant differences in body weights between crossbred males and royal purple males at all ages. Crossbreeding was thus effective in improving growth performance of the white variety of guinea fowl.\r\n\r\n\tKey words: Growth, cross breeding, royal purple guinea fowls, white guinea fowls.