Original Contribution CANONICAL DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OF MORPHOMETRIC TRAITS IN INDIGENOUS CHICKEN GENOTYPES

Morphological traits and live weight data collected from three Nigerian indigenous chicken genotypes naked neck (nn), frizzled feather (FF) and normal feather (NN) chickens was evaluated for diversity study, using canonical discriminant analysis, the parameters evaluated include body weight (BW), body length (BL), chest circumference (CC), shank length (SL), thigh length (TL), keel length (KL), wing length (WL) and body width (BD). The frizzled feathered were heavier and had longer keel length, significantly better than other genotypes, with naked neck had the least of all body parameters. Two discriminant functions were extracted accounting for 100% total variance. BW, TL and BD had the highest discriminatory power of all the variables. The pair wise square mahalanobis distance show closer relationship between normal feather and naked neck (3.371 and greater distance between normal feathered and frizzled feathered chicken (4.620). The morphological distance will help in understanding genetic diversity of the chicken genotypes and can help to initiate programme for the preservation of the chicken genetic resources. Key word: diversity, normal feather, naked neck, agro-ecological zone, ecotype, distance