Performance evaluation and construction of multi-trait selection indices in a commercial strain of White Leghorn Singh S.K., Sharma R.K., Singh Harpal, Kumar D. Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, U.S. Nagar - 263145 (UA). Abstract Records of 1136 pullets of an elite strain of White Leghorn maintained by a commercial poultry breeder were analyzed to evaluate its performance and to construct multi-trait selection indices for overall genetic improvement. Twenty six multi-trait selection indices were computed using five traits viz. ASM, BWI8, BW32, EP and EW in different combinations. The relative economic values were derived as -1, -1, -1, 2 and 11 respectively. Index IMTI, incorporating all the five traits showed aggregate genetic gain (ΔH) of Rs.161.638 with rIH value of 0.773 and relative efficiency of 100.00% whereas index IMT6 (excluding EW) was found to have maximum ΔH value of Rs 172.559 and relative efficiency of 106.76% and was considered as most efficient index. The selection based on this index (IMT6) would bring about desirable expected genetic changes in individual traits as -2.104 days, -45.571g, -116.936g and 3.973 eggs for ASM, BWI8, BW32 and EP40 respectively. The expected genetic gains in index IMTI were found as 2.105 days, -44.303g, -116.414g, 4.131 eggs and -0.859g for ASM, BWI8, BW32, EP and EW respectively indicating that BW32 was the major contributor to the aggregate genetic economic gain followed by BW 18, EP, ASM and EW. Top Key words White Leghorn, heritability, correlations, selection index, egg production. Top |