Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 92 (2): 196–201, February 2022/Article Genetic and phenotypic characterization of Kuzi ducks of Odisha and evaluation of carcass quality M K PADHI 1 , S C GIRI 1 , K V H SASTRY 2 , S K SAHOO 1 , R K S BAIS 3 and V K SAXENA 4 Regional Station, ICAR-Directorate of Poultry Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751 003 India Received: 1 October 2021; Accepted: 11 November 2021 ABSTRACT In the present investigation, the Kuzi ducks of Odisha were studied with respect to different phenotypic traits and genetic parameters measured for Juvenile traits from 1,718 ducklings hatched in three hatches using 40 sires and 160 dams reared under standard management conditions. Fertility, hatchability, juvenile traits, body weight gains and plumage characteristics were recorded. Carcass characteristics of the drakes were also measured at 20 weeks of age. The average fertility was 75.42% and hatchability on total egg set and fertile egg set basis were 61.79 and 82.10%, respectively. The body weight between male and female showed sexual dimorphisms with respect to body weight and conformation traits from 4 th week onwards in Kuzi ducks. The least square body weight recorded at 8 weeks of age in male, female and pooled over sexes were 1,388, 1,231 and 1,282 g, respectively. Heritability estimates for different juvenile traits were moderate to high in magnitude for the traits studied. Body weight recorded at 20 weeks of age was 1,818 g in male and 1,628 g in female. Total edible carcass yield was 76.48% at 20 weeks of age in male. Multi-colour is found to be dominant plumage colour. The study revealed that Kuzi ducks of Odisha have very good potential for duck farming in the country and the body weight of the duck may be improved by selection of the birds and the drake (male) may be used for meat purpose. The growth of the ducklings was very fast from 2 to 8 weeks of age. Keywords: Body weight, Carcass quality, Conformation traits, Correlation, Duck, Heritability, Kuzi, Plumage colour 48 Present address: 1 Regional Station, ICAR- Directorate of Poultry Research, Bhubaneswar, Odhisa. 2 ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 3 ICAR-Central Avian Research Institute, Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh. 4 ICAR, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.  Corresponding author email: padhi16@rediffmail.com Duck is second most important poultry species after chicken in India. Duck farming is popular in many coastal states and other states having large water bodies. As per the 20 th Livestock Census (2019), total duck population in the country is 33.51 million out of which, 32.5 million are being reared in backyard, which is about 97% of the total duck population of the country. It is also known that most of the Indian duck populations are of indigenous origin (Padhi 2014). Different aspects in respect to growth, production and reproductive performance of indigenous duck breeds in the country have been reported (Zaman et al. 2007, Padhi et al. 2009a, Padhi 2010, Veeramani et al. 2014, Padhi et al. 2019, Kamal et al. 2020). However, there are limited number of reports on genetic and phenotypic characteristics of the ducks native to Odisha. In Odisha, there are about 36 lakh ducks out of which, ~ 98% are being reared under backyard system. The indigenous ducks are mostly reared by the marginal and landless farmers. The reports on indigenous duck in Odisha are available in literature on various aspects like growth (Padhi et al. 2009a, 2019), production (Padhi et al. 2009b, Padhi 2010), phenotypic and morphometric characterization (Kamal et al. 2019), carcass characteristics (Padhi et al. 2007, 2010). Kuzi ducks are one of the indigenous non-descript breeds of Odisha popular in farming community and different traits of these birds are less studied (Annonymous 2019). Though indigenous ducks in India are important for improving duck production in the country, extensive research in selection and breeding has not been carried out so far. Cyriac et al. (2020) reported genetic parameters and response to selection for eight week body weight in Kutttanad ducks of Kerala. However, the genetic parameters in respect to different traits in other indigenous duck like Kuzi are not available. Keeping this in view, we aimed to study the genetic and phenotypic characteristics of Kuzi ducks of Odisha with respect to body weight, conformation traits, plumage colour and carcass quality. MATERIALS AND METHODS Kuzi duck were collected from different parts of Odisha. Small population of Kuzi ducks available in the Regional Station of ICAR-Central Avian Research Institute, Bhubaneswar which is presently under ICAR-Directorate https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v92i2.122082