International Journal of Molecular Zoology, 2025, Vol.15, No.2, 90-100 http://animalscipublisher.com/index.php/ijmz 90 Case Study Open Access Hybridization Strategies to Improve Growth Rate and Egg Production in Chickens JunWang1, Shiqiang Huang2 1 Animal Science Research Center, Cuixi Academy of Biotechnology, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China 2 Tropical Animal Resources Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China Corresponding author: shiqiang.huang@cuixi.org International Journal of Molecular Zoology, 2025, Vol.15, No.2 doi: 10.5376/ijmz.2025.15.0010 Received: 15 Feb., 2025 Accepted: 20 Mar., 2025 Published: 28 Apr., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Wang and Huang, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Wang J., and Huang S.Q., 2025, Hybridization strategies to improve growth rate and egg production in chickens, International Journal of Molecular Zoology, 15(2): 90-100 (doi: 10.5376/ijmz.2025.15.0010) Abstract This study reviews the application and mechanism of hybrid breeding in improving the growth rate and egg-laying performance of domestic chickens. The global production of broilers and laying hens is huge, but increasing their growth rate and egg-laying rate faces multiple challenges such as genetics and the environment. The genetic basis of the major economic traits (growth and egg production) of domestic chickens is complex, involving multi-gene control and quantitative trait loci. Hybrid breeding significantly increases the weight gain rate of broilers, feed conversion efficiency, as well as egg production and egg quality of laying hens by taking advantage of heterosis. Different types of hybridization methods include two-breed hybridization, three-line or four-line combination, etc. Gene complementarity and genetic gain can be achieved through reasonable selection of parents. Practical experience has shown that hybridization with superior strains can produce high-yield broilers and highly efficient laying hens. For instance, fast-growing broilers can be obtained through professional parent line hybridization, and hybridization between local breeds and introduced breeds can balance adaptability and production performance. Meanwhile, with the assistance of molecular markers and whole-genome selection, the accumulation of superior genes in hybrid breeding can be accelerated, and the breeding efficiency can be improved. However, hybrid breeding also faces challenges such as the complexity of genetic assessment of hybrid populations, the balance between breeding and conservation, and the application of new technologies. Systematically studying the genetic basis of the main economic traits of domestic chickens and optimizing the crossbreeding line scheme is of great significance for further exploring heterosis and improving the breeding efficiency. Keywords Domestic chicken Hybrid breeding Growth performance; Egg-laying performance; Heterosis 1 Introduction Domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are one of the most important poultry breeds in the world and play a core role in providing animal protein. Its strong adaptability, short reproductive cycle and high economic value make it an indispensable part of global food security and rural livelihoods (Mokoena et al., 2024). According to statistics, the global chicken production exceeded 120 million tons in 2022, and the annual egg production exceeded 1.2 trillion pieces (Cendron et al., 2025). With the development of the livestock industry towards intensive and efficient directions, improving the growth rate of broilers and the egg-laying performance of laying hens has become the focus of breeders (Fu et al., 2023). With the continuous growth of demand for poultry products, the pressure to improve breeding efficiency, optimize resource utilization rate and meet the changing consumer preferences is also increasing (Soliman et al., 2020; El-Tahawy and Habashy, 2021; Taye and Dawit, 2024). Traditional breeding has made great progress through purebred selection, but against the backdrop of changes in resource utilization and consumer demand, hybrid breeding, as an important means, is receiving increasing attention. Hybridization can combine the superior characteristics of different strains, achieving a leapfrog improvement in production performance while maintaining genetic diversity. Hybridization can utilize both additive and non-additive genetic effects simultaneously, thereby generating heterosis. Its performance in key economic traits such as growth rate, feed conversion rate and egg production is often superior to that of the parent stock chickens (Mokoena et al., 2025). The commercial poultry industry has long widely utilized hybridization
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