The document discusses the conservation of poultry genetic resources. It defines poultry genetic resources and notes that chickens were domesticated around 5400 BC. It outlines some heritage poultry breeds in India that exist prior to 1950s and represent disease resistance and stress tolerance genes. The genetic diversity within poultry species is important to allow for future selection. Strategies for conservation include in situ conservation of live populations and ex situ conservation through cryopreservation and molecular techniques. Both phenotypic and genotypic characterization of breeds is important for conservation efforts.

1. CONSERVATION OF POULTRY GENETIC RESOURCESCONSERVATION OF POULTRY
GENETIC RESOURCES
By;
KANAKA K K
IVRI

2.  Poultry Genetic Resources include all
poultry species, breeds and strains
(and their wild relatives) that are of
economic, scientific and cultural
interest to humankind in terms of food
and production for the present or in
the future.

3. POULTRY DOMESTICATION
 Historical and Archaeological
evidences - chickens were
domesticated during 5400 B.C.,
 The term "Poultry" indicates all
domesticated species of birds like
chicken, ducks, turkeys, Japanese
quail, guinea fowls, geese, pigeons,
ostrich, emu etc.,

4. Acc. 19th livestock census
poultry population in India is 729.209
millions.

7. Heritage poultry breeds
 Breeds that existed prior to the 1950s.
 Represent a rich storehouse of
genes for traits like disease
resistance, stress tolerance, unique
egg and meat flavour profiles and
increased robustness.
 However, many heritage breeds are
rare and threatened with extinction

8. Genetic diversity
 Genetic diversity refers to the variety of genes
within a species.
 Each species is made up of individuals that have
their own particular genetic composition.
 Within a species there may also be discrete
populations with distinctive genes.
 Genetic diversity in industrial stocks is essential
to afford future opportunities of selection for
changed market/ consumer preferences,
products etc.

9. Gene Nature of
Inheritance
Direct effect Side effect
dw (dwarf) Sex linked,
recessive,
multiple allelic
Reduction in body
size 10-30%
Reduced metabolism,
improved fitness and
disease tolerance
Na (Naked
neck)
Incomplete
dominant
Loss of Neck
feathers, Reduction
of secondary
feathers
Improved ability for convection,
Improved adult fitness
F (Frizzle) Incomplete
dominant
Curling of feathers,
reduced feathering
Improved ability for convection
h (Silky) Recessive Lack of hamuli on
the barbules,
delicate shaft,
long barbs at the
contour feathers
Improved ability for convection
Tropical relevant genes in local fowl (HORST, 1988)
SOURCE: LPM 211: Avian Production Management (e learning @ TANUVAS)

10. Gene Nature of
Inheritance
Direct effect Side effect
K
(Slow feathring)
Dominant, sex
linked, multiple
allelic
Delay of
feathering
Reduced protein requirement,
reduced fat deposition during
juvenile life, increased heat loss
during early growth, delayed
immune response mechanism
id
(Non Inhibitor of
dermal melanin)
Recessive,
sex linked, multiple
allelic
Dermal melanin
deposition on
skin and
shank
Improved ability for radiation from
shank and skin
Fm (Fibromelenosis) Dominant with
multifactorial
modifiers
Melanin
deposition on all
over body,
muscles and
nerves, tendons,
mesentery and
blood vessel
walls
Protection of skin against UV
radiation, improved radiation from
the skin, increased pack cell
volume and plasma protein

11.  As per world watch list there are 19
breeds existing in our country where
as per ICAR –NBAGR there are 17
breeds existing .
 Among these all breeds show critical
status of endangerment excep SOME
BREEDS

12. time to worry?
 Europe records the highest percentage
of extinct breeds or breeds at risk (55%
for mammalian and 69% for avian
breeds).
 Asia and Africa record only 14% and
18% respectively.
FAO corporate repository document
in the year 2000, over 6300 breeds of
domesticated livestock were identified.
Of these, over 1300 are now extinct

13. WORLD 606
ASIA 72
EUROPE 406
AMERIC
A
45
AFRICA 57
World watch list FAO
62 EXTINCTIONS
BETWEEN 1999 AND
2006 (FAO, 2007)

14. Major reasons behind heritage
loss:
 Non-adoption of breeding plan and
unrestricted interbreeding among different
breeds.
 Growing trend of global reliance on a limited
number of selected breeds
(commercialsation)
 Degradation of ecosystems.
 Fluctuating market requirements.
 Diseases and natural disasters.
 Political unrest and instability

15.  Erosion of genetic potential in
industry stocks as a result of
decades of intensive
selection(Founder effect and Bottle
necking).

16. Causes for the loss of genetic
diversity in poultry
 Accelerated loss of experimental/
specialized research populations
 Replacement of locally adapted breeds
in small farms and villages with modern
industry stocks
 Consolidation of primary breeding
companies globally resulting in loss of
foundation populations (business
decisions?)

17. Commercialization factors
 Huge market, knowledge
 Avilability of stocks , feed ,health care

18. What we need to do,

19. Why we need to conserve?
 Disease resistence
 Hardier and need less health care than exotic birds
 Better adaptability to extreme climatic conditions
 Higher amino acid contents (arginine and lysine) in meat
 Meat - widely preferred for taste, leanness and often
fetches higher prices
 lower in cholesterol than farm bird eggs

20. Conservation
 To maintain genetic diversity.
 long-term sustainability and
competitiveness of our poultry
industry.
 Steps to conserve: in situ as living
populations or ex situ as
cryopreserved material.

21. ACTION PLANS for
Conservation
 Identification and listing of all the
available poultry genetic resources.
 Breed description and characterization
to understand their unique qualities and
potential contributions based on their
-population structure
-genetic diversity
-economic utility.

22. CHARACTERIZATION
Identifying distinct breed populations
and describing their external ,
production and genetic characteristics.
 PHENOTYPIC charecterization.
 GENOTYPIC charecterization.

23. PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERRIZATION
 Phenotypic characterization of AnGR
generally refers to the process of
identifying distinct breed populations and
describing their external and production
characteristics within a given production
environment.
 Phenotypic traits include observable
traits such as height, weight, eye color,
hair color, horn size, hoof color, etc.

24. Objectives
 To identify new breed
 To know the geographical distributions of
the breed
 To know status of breed in terms of
population, characteristics, etc. in native
environments
 To document unique characteristics of
the breed

25.  To Identify elite animals to be used in
improvement programmes
 Establishment of breed societies for
conservation of the breed in-situ.
 Creation of data-base on indigenous
animal genetic resources.
 Development of technology for collection
and freezing of genetic material

26. GENOTYPIC
CHARECTERIZATION
 Genetic variability is a major concern to
define any livestock breed and to preserve
the maximum amount of genetic diversity.
 The genetic characterization is a further step
to answer questions on taxonomy, evolution,
domestication processes, management of
genetic resources and setting conservation
plans for their effective utilization.

27. Objectives
 Genetic characterization assesses the
genetic constitution of a breed.
 It assesses the genetic uniformity, admixture
or subdivisions, inbreeding, or introgression
in the population.
 It is also helpful in providing insight into breed
formation.
 To create data base, gene bank
 Helps in breed registration.

28. Strategies
 Sampling design: it should cover most of
the genetic variability in the population.
 Choice of samples: Almost all cells or
tissues may be used for DNA analysis for
genotyping by any methods ,most common
tissue is blood. Other samples like semen,
hide, bone, tissue feaces, fossils,feathers
can also be used.
 Number of samples:For reliable estimation
of allele frequencies, at least 25 and
preferably 50 samples needed.

29. In situ conservation
 In situ conservation is on-site conservation or
the conservation of genetic resources in
natural populations of plant or animal
species.
 Since the cost of keeping live flock is
becoming increasingly prohibitive for most
research institutions, our poultry producers
and hobbyist are left with the burden of
conserving living heritage poultry.
 Herd registration project.

30. limitations
 Raising small flocks could lead to
inbreeding, lost genetic diversity and
increased health problems.
 maintain multiple breeds on a single
farm can jeopardize genetic purity.

31. Cryopreservation
 Cryopreservation is an important
complementary measure for the
conservation of diversity in poultry as
in other farm animal species.
 Potential methods to store frozen
poultry semen were developed by
Lake and Stewart (1978) & Sexton
(1980, 1981).

32.  Alternative to cryopreservation-
chimerical offspring produced from
frozen-thawed embryonic cells as
well as cloning of frozen somatic
cells might be a way to
reconstitute genes via the avian
egg (Tajima, 2002).
 CARI diluent expressed higher
fertility rate in 24 hrs stored semen (at
low temperature) of WLH chicken in
comparison to world class semen

33.  WLH chicken semen showed high fertility
rate at 7±1 °C followed by storage at 11±1
°C and 3±1 °C at 24 hrs storage of semen.
 sperm storage tubules and development
of technology for short term preservation
and utilization of male gametes in
ducks(Dr K.V.H. Sastry, Dr S.C. Giri, Dr R.K.S. Bais
,Dr S.K. Sahoo)

34. Vitrification
 Unfortunately, thawed cryopreserved poultry
sperm has a very low success rate in
fertilizing eggs.
 In 2007, a research team at the Agriculture
and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Pacific Agri-
Food Research Centre in Agassiz,
successfully adapted a new low-temperature
preservation technique, vitrification, to store
male and female poultry gonads (i.e.
reproductive organs) in liquid nitrogen.

35.  Unlike cryopreservation, vitrification is a process
of rapid ultra-cooling of tissue - the tissue is not
technically frozen (no ice crystal formation) but
rather maintained in a glass-like or vitreous state
at ultra-low temperature.
 Regenerating poultry lines is a matter of
surgically implanting thawed vitrified gonads into
recipient birds. The recipients, regardless of their
own genetic background, go on to produce
progeny of the desired breed.

36.  Higher levels of cryoprotactent used.
 Short exposer time.

37. Conservation through Molecular
tools
 The modern day molecular tools provide
highly efficient scientific levers to arrest
the decline in biodiversity of the
endangered poultry species.
 With the advent of various DNA profiling
techniques, the endangered and
threatened breeds of poultry can be
efficiently evaluated for their genetic
worth and be maintained without further
erosion of genetic variability.

38.  Among the most potential DNA markers are:
microsatellites, unique RFLPs and SNPs, which can be
efficiently used for the above, using the sequence info,
freely accessible from the public domain databases.
 With such available genetic information in hand,
custom-breeding programs can be designed, by the
breeders, which could help-conserve any endangered
breeds in a scientific manner.
 Immunocompetence and microsatellite profiling in
RIR(CARI annual report 2015-16)

39. Present scenario in
conservation
CARI NIRBHEEK Aseel cross CARl Red
CARI SHYAMA Kadakanath cross CARl Red.
CARI UPKARI Indian nativeFrizzle cross
CARI Red
CARI HITCARI Indian native Naked neck
cross CARI Red
CARI MOTI Native Meat Type duck
CARI KHAKI Native Egg type duck Source; CARI

40. Variety Developed by
Giriraja Department of Poultry Science Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and
Fisheries Sciences University Hebbal, Bangalore 560 024
Gramalakshmi Centre for advanced Studies in Poultry Science College of Veterinary and
Animal Sciences Kerala Agricultural University Mannuthy 680 651
Gramapriya Proejct Directorate on Poultry rajendranagar Hyderabad 500 030, AP
Gramasree Centre for Advanced Studies in Poultry Science
College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Kerala Agricultural University
Mannuthy 680 651.
Kalinga Brown Central Poultry Breeding Farm, Bhubaneswar Orissa
Krishibro Project Directorate on Poultry Rajendranagar Hyderabad , AP
Krishna-J Department of Poultry Science College of Veterinary Sciences Jabalpur
Nandanam The Professor and Head Poultry Research Station, Nandanam, Chennai

41. Variety Developed by
Nicorock Central Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, Andaman and
Nicobari Island
Nishibari Central Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, Andaman and
Nicobari Island
Rajasree College of Veterinary Sciences Sri Venkateswara Veterinary
University Rajendranagar, Hyderabad
Swarnadhara Department of Poultry Science Karnataka Veterinary Animal and
Fisheries Sciences University Hebbal, Bangalore 560 024.
Vanaraja Project Directorate on Poultry Rajendranagar Hyderabad , AP
Yamuna Department of Poultry Science College of Veterinary Sciences
Jabalpur
Grama Laxmi KAU, Mannuthy
Krishnapriya KAU, Mannuthy

42.  Productivity
Improvement of
Diversified Poultry
species and genetic
improvement of guinea
fowl varieties-CARI
 conservation and
utilization of indigenous
chicken-CARI
Annual report CARI 2014-15

44. “Chickens, not computers, can eradicate poverty”
-Bill Gates

45. References
 CARI annual reports 2014-15 and 2015-16
 NBAGR- AnGR portal
 FAO official website
 ISAG website
 Conserving Valuable Poultry Genetics - You can Help
 Vison 2030- National bureau of animal genetics
resources – NDRI- KARNAL.
 Steffen Weigend, Michael N. Romanov, and Detlef
Rath- Methodologies to identify, evaluate & conserve
poultry genetics.

46.  Steffen Weigend, Michael N.
Romanov, and Detlef Rath-
Methodologies to identify, evaluate &
conserve poultry genetics.

47. “……The backyard poultry,……….highly important for
livelihood and nutritional securities of the rural poor, is,
however, facing many problems. The focus, therefore,
would be to provide appropriate support to this sector in
the form of financial assistance, genetic stocks and
improved technologies, scientific advice,
extension/awareness, particularly on bio security
measures. Conservation of indigenous poultry breeds
would be encouraged for producing poultry birds suitable
for backyard poultry.” NATIONAL LIVESTOCK POLICY 2013,
GOI