Knowledge of carcass merit will help the meat duck breeder identify superior stock and accelerate genetic improvement. Selection for leanness will enhance product acceptance by the consumer. Heritability values for carcass traits are in the medium-high range. Feed intake level during rearing is critical for reproduction. The objectives were to evaluate (1) the response of breast muscle thickness of the F1 progeny from parent breeders selected for maximum muscle thickness at market age and (2) the effect of 2 levels of feed restriction during development for subsequent egg production. In a commercial flock, 4842 Pekin ducks (Brome Lake Ducks Ltd.) were individually weighed and measured by ultrasound for breast muscle thickness (MT, mm) at 47 days of age. Three groups of 120 females and 25 males each were selected and allocated to the following groups: (1) control (CT), randomly selected; (2) maximum body weight (BW), and (3) maximum MT. From 7 to 23 wk old, one half of breeders followed a conventional restriction (CR) at 67 g feed/kg body weight daily, the other half were slightly more restricted following a Macdonald restriction (MR) at the same intake as CR but with a weekly skip-a-day feeding. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20832 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Lavallée, Sophie. |
| Contributors | Chavez, E. R. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Animal Science.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001610165, proquestno: MQ44202, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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