Assessment of genetic diversity in Nigerian local chicken populations based on haematological parameters was conducted using 150 chickens, comprising 50 Normal-feathered (NF), 50 Frizzled-feathered (FF), and 50 Naked-neck (NN) birds. The chickens were reared under a deep litter system and allowed to acclimatize for four weeks. Males and females were kept separately to prevent mating during the research period. Blood samples were collected from the brachial vein using 2 ml disposable syringes and placed in test tubes containing EDTA for haematological analysis. The results revealed significant (p<0.05) differences in Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), White Blood Cell (WBC) count, Heterophils (HETRO), Lymphocytes (LYMP), and Thrombocytes (THROM). Normal-feathered (NF) chickens exhibited significantly (p<0.05) superior values in PCV, MCV, MCH, MCHC, and WBC, with measurements of 22.2%, 134.62 fl, 50.78 pg, and 13.62×109 L-1, respectively, compared to NN and FF chickens, which had values of 16.58 and 9.68%, 110.44 and 137.84 fl, 38.90 and 51.86 pg and 28.24 and 37.70 g/dl, 5.92×109 L-1 and 9.90 ×109 L-1, respectively. Classification and predicted group membership results indicated that the three chicken strains—NN, NF, and FF were 100% true to type. The Mahalanobis distance between NN and FF was the highest at 0.89, while the smallest distance was between NF and FF at 0.43. The most powerful discriminating haematological parameters among the three strains were WBC, THROM, LYMP, PCV, Basophils, Eosinophils, and Neutrophils. The percentage of shared variance of function 1 (94.2%) was higher than that of function 2 (5.8%). The canonical correlation for function 1 (0.969) was also higher than for function 2 (0.697). These findings suggest that the genetic variations in haematological parameters among the three strains of chickens in Nigeria could be valuable for future breeding programs.

 

Key words: Chicken, haematology, genetic diversity, strains.