Abstract

Guinea fowls are increasingly popular in Botswana since they not only provide an alternative to access protein in the form of eggs and meat but also become a good source of income for the peasants. There are different varieties of Guinea fowl in Botswana, including pearl grey, lavender, royal purple, and white. Indeed, there is a need to conduct more studies related to the phenotypic correlations among egg quality traits in different varieties of helmeted guinea fowl found in Botswana. Therefore, the present study was targeted toward the evaluation of both the external and internal quality characteristics of the four different varieties of the domesticated helmeted guinea fowl found in Botswana. In this regard, a total of 150 eggs were collected from the so-called varieties of domesticated helmeted guinea fowl. The egg weight was positively and significantly correlated with egg length, egg width, shell weight, egg surface area, and egg volume; however, the egg weight was negatively correlated with egg shape index. Of the four varieties of domesticated helmeted guinea fowl found in Botswana, the white variety had the strongest correlation coefficients with various external egg quality traits and different internal egg quality characteristics. The lavender variety had the highest correlation coefficients with internal and external egg quality traits. It seems that the selection for higher egg weight as is the case in the current egg grading system can lead to the greatest improvements in other egg quality characteristics in the white and lavender varieties, compared to the pearl grey and royal purple varieties. Therefore, the lavender and white varieties are the potential candidates for the possible selection of layer-type guinea fowl varieties.