Improving the Emu's performance
written by Dr.S.K.Maini
Those farmers who fail to adopt practices that improve the Emu's performance year after year,do significant damage to themselves and their customers.
What ever be the mother Emu's production ,anything ranging between 5 eggs to 40 eggs or more during the season and all chicks produced from these eggs have been sold to new entrepreneurs as future breeders ,most of them are closely related leading to inbreeding depression or deterioration in aver all reproductive performance,lower hatchabilit's with poor fitness and survive-ability of chicks.
No where in India as on date , abreeding program to improve the performance of Emu's is in place,it is suggested to the Emu farmers for boththeir and long term benefits and for the benifits of this new,fast growing and strongly upcoming Indian Emu Industry to implement breeding practices that eliminate or reduce inbreeding in their own flocks,cull the performers and avoid breeding those birds that have not performed well during the past three breeding seasons.
The most important economic traits are breeder egg production ,fertility,hatchabiity and survival of the chicks,while good growth rate,better FCR and freedom from leg problems should be expected from thr progeny.
Requirements for the Emu breeding program are - a decision to do it,single pair pens of the size 10 feet width and 35 to 40 feet length,to accesss the individuals performance,maintain record of egg production,fertility,hatchability and chicks survival ,a minimum of 50 pairs should be studied over 2 to 3 years period,also provide well balanced nutrition and stress free environment to the breeders for accurate and meaningful results.
Willingness to cull the poor performance adds to the profitability of the enterprise and reduces their numbers in the overall population ,as we know from knowledge and experience that poor performers will produce poor performers only hampering growth of the Emu industry.
Technically the breeding programs should initially be designed to potimize genetic gains in growth rate,egg production,hatchability and chickssurvival rates ,these traits are called qualitative traits and are controlled by the additive actio of several genses.The heritability of these traits for the Emu's is not really known,however we know the heritability's of a large number of traits of other avian species and can expect similar values for the Emu's.
Trait Heritability
Total Feed Consumption 70
Feed Conversion 35
Age at sexual maturity 25
Egg Production 15
Egg Weight 55
Shell thickness 40
Egg Shape 60
Fertility 5
Hatchability 10
Adult body weight 55
Juvenile weight 45
Dressing percentage 45
Fat deposition 50
for example the juvenile growth rate is highly heritable-45%,what this means,genetic progress with respect to this trait is easy and fast,body weight can be improved relatively quickly as a result of selection and breeding.
The gain or annual rate of genitic improvement i a given trait is determined by its heritability and selecion pressure.Selection pressure is te percentage of birds selected to be the future breeders out of the population.
Record the data,analyze it and use the information for identifying th 20 to 25 percentage of the individuals that perform best ,also maintain the next 50 prcent average performers and cull the 25 percent poor performers,This exercise when done for 3 to 4 years will leave the farm with only the best performers and their progeny,the next important thing to do is avoid inbreeding of closely related individuals,an easy way to ensure this is to exchange males with others who follow breeding of birds on similar lines .
Breeding and genetics is a complex subject and will take several years before the industry takes the services of qualified geneticists to study Emu genetics and breeding programs to improve their performance,till such time the above mentioned program can be followed and improveents ensured for the benefit of one and all in the Indian Emu Industry.
