Growth and Survival performance of Kuroiler Chickens and their crosses with local hens Kugonza DR, Hirwa CD, Mayigane L, Rwemalika D, Safari S, Kayitesi A, Gahakwa D 1Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), P.O.Box 5016, Kigali, Rwanda E-mail: donkugonza@gmail.com Take Home Message Kuroiler cocks under semi-intensive management weighed 3.6 kg at 4 months, while crossbreds weighed 3.5 kg at 7 months. Kuroiler chickens were superior in growth to crossbreds during the pre-weaning stage. Kuroilers should be promoted for up scaling in other parts of Rwanda, indeed introductions of the chickens in Huye and Kirehe since early 2013 have been successful. The manual incubator is helpful in incubating many eggs at a time, but is not as efficient as the hen. Introduction and Objective Local chickens have several characteristics that are appropriate to traditional low input/low output farming systems. Their problem is low productivity which is wide spread in most zones of Rwanda. Presently, the country is a net importer of eggs, meat and birds from other countries. To overcome this, a new breed, the Kuroiler was introduced into Rwanda by this research team. This study assessed the performance of pure and crossbred Kuroiler cocks at Songa Research Station. When successful, the cocks were to be used as sires in a community chicken breeding programme in Rwanda. Fig. 2 The first Kuroiler eggs, The research team, The incubator Results and Discussion After four cycles, the mean hatchability of eggs was 62.6% for brooding hens and 44.5% for the incubator. The mean pre-weaning (0–4 weeks) chick survival was 94.8% for Kuroiler and 90.0% for crossbred chicks (P>0.05), showing the superiority of the new breed. At four months of age, pure Kuroiler cocks weighed 3.6±0.5 kg, higher (P>0.05) than crossbred cocks (2.3±0.6 kg) who reached 3.5±0.5 kg at 7 months. Fifty crossbred cocks have so far been distributed to farmers in Kinazi and Nasho sectors, where they have sired over 100 chicks, all incubated and brooded naturally by their mothers. A field day was held for the recipient farmers and vaccination of chickens in the communities against New Castle disease was done. A concurrent growth evaluation of all genotypes (pure local, pure Kuroiler and the crossbreds) is planned. Methodology 20 local hens and five Kuroiler cocks were assembled and managed under semi-intensive conditions at Songa station, Southern Rwanda. 90 fertile eggs of Pure Kuroiler breed were also procured. Eggs were either incubated naturally by a set of four hens, or artificially using a 60-egg manual incubator. 220 chicks were then brooded artificially until four weeks, after which they were housed at night but during the day either stayed indoor eating a commercial diet or grazed in an outdoor run constructed around the chicken houses. ANOVA was conducted for weight and survival data using CRD experimental design for each trial according to SAS ver. 9.1.3 procedures. Means were separated using LSD. Table 1 Comparative performance of hens and manual incubator Variable Brooding hen Incubator No. of eggs incubated 8.8±0.3 59.5±0.5 Chicks hatched 5.5±1.0 26.5±0.5 Chicks weaned 5.1±2.1 25.7±0.7 Hatchability (%) 62.6±11.9 44.5±1.2 Fig. 1: Happy farmers receiving Kuroiler cocks at Songa Station Fig. 3: The mature Kuroiler Cocks Acknowledgements This study was supported by Rwanda Agroculture Board (RAB)