Relationship between egg weight, hatching weight and subsequent body weight in the Japanese quail

An experiment to determine the relationship between egg weight, hatch weight and subsequent body weight of the Japanese quail was conducted. A total of 607 eggs collected over 6 days from an existing flock at the Animal Pavilion of the University of Ilorin were used for the experiment. Eggs were individually numbered, weighed and grouped into small (S) medium (M) and large (L) sized eggs based on the mean and standard deviation of the eggs. Mean egg weight were correlated and regressed with mean hatch weight and subsequent weight. Average egg weights were 10.23± 0.84g, 8.49± 0.72g and 6.94± 0.93g for the large, medium and small group respectively. The result showed relationship between egg weight and hatch weight were positive and highly significant (P < 0.01) with values of 0.973, 0.977 and 0.967 for small, medium and large groups, respectively. Relationship between hatch weights and weekly body weights were also positive and significant (P<0.01) for the medium and large groups only but decreased with age. Linear regression equation showed a significant coefficient of determination for weekly body weight using the values for small, medium and large egg weight values. The results of the study showed that egg weight can be reliably used for estimating body weight in Japanese quail and may be used as criteria for early selection of Japanese quail for body weight.