Journal of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine Volume 3(6), pages 171-175, December 2018 https://doi.org/10.31248/JASVM2018.113 ISSN 2536-7099. Copyright © 2018 Article Number: AE0EA2161 http://www.integrityresjournals.org/journal/JASVM Full Length Research Reproductive performance of different strains of indigenous domestic fowls at Takalmawa and Nasarawa villages of Sokoto State, Nigeria A. Y. Raji 1 * and W. A. Hassan 2 1 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. 2 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria. *Correspondence author. Email: ayraji.asc@buk.edu.ng, amiraj58@yahoo.ca. Tel: 08060143302. Copyright © 2018 Raji and Hassan. This article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received 26th October, 2018; Accepted 26th November, 2018 ABSTRACT: A study was undertaken to investigate the reproductive performance (incubation, hatching and brooding) of 14 flock indigenous domestic fowls comprising of 119 hens from July to October, 2008. The study was conducted in two villages; Takalmawa and Nasarawa villages in Dange Shuni and Shagari Local Government Areas of Sokoto State respectively. The hens in the selected households were monitored weekly for three months and information such as date of visit, live weight, eggs laid, laying duration, egg weight and hatchability were recorded. Results of the study revealed that mean body weights of hens varied significantly according to physiological state and incubation periods (p<0.05). The mean body weights were 1.37, 0.88 and 1.08 kg for laying hens, incubating hens and brooding hens, respectively. The mean value for number of eggs laid, laying duration, egg weight and hatchability were 12.21, 16.70 days, 21.56 g and 86% respectively. Percent brooding loss was 20.89% and mean age at weaning was 44.33 days. Hatchability was negatively correlated with number of eggs laid and hen weight. Keywords: Brooding, flocks, hatching, incubation. INTRODUCTION In natural incubation, the number of chickens raised per mother hen will give insight into the reproductive capacity of the hen. Vast amounts of data exist on the performance of local chickens from tropical zones, but often they are not directly comparable due to the way in which information is gathered varies from study to study (FAO, 2010). Variation thus exists greatly between results obtained from a research station, where the cost of feed is not a problem, and those obtained from field systems in rural areas, where the farmer may be unwilling or unable to meet the cost of supplying feed for the birds. The result of a station test reflects the genetic capacity of the tested breed, while a field test provides a more realistic measure of performance under the prevailing production (FAO, 2010). It was reported by Sola-Ojo and Ayorinde (2011) that factors such as line and strain effect were paramount for fertility, hatchability, body weight, total egg number, hen day egg production and body weight at first egg. Reports on native strains in the tropics showed that the egg production potential and growth of these local chickens is very low under smallholder farmer's management conditions (Dessie et al., 2011) A broad gene pool of local chickens arises from their large population in the tropics from which hybrids could be synthesized but which is currently neglected. The body weight variation in these fowls with respect to ecotype, sex, comb type and comb size was reported by Hassan and Abdullahi (2003). Dearth of information thus exists on performance trait estimates, especially those related to reproduction in the indigenous poultry diversity. Thus, this study offers estimates for some reproductive parameters in village-raised domestic hens in Sokoto State. This step was aimed at identifying possible gap in reproductive performance and the husbandry of the birds for enhanced