Principal Component Analysis of Egg Quality Characteristics of Isa Brown Layer Chickens in Nigeria

This study was designed to provide an objective description of egg quality of Isa brown layer chickens in Nigeria. 104 eggs were used for the study. The eggs were initially weighed individually using a sensitive electronic weighing balance with accuracy of 0.001g. Data were collected on egg weight, egg length, egg width, oblong circumference, egg shell weight, yolk height, albumen height, albumen length, Haugh unit, albumen index and egg shell thickness. Data were subjected to principal component analysis. Egg quality traits had three principal components (factors) that contributed 85.805% of the total variability of the original eleven egg characteristics tested. The three principal components had Eigen values of 4.73 (PC1), 3.656 (PC2) and 1.069 (PC3). The first factor (PC1) accounted for 42.84% of the total variance, the second factor (PC2) accounted for 33.24% of the total variance, while the third factor (PC3) accounted for 9.72% of the total variance. The moderate to large communalities (0.583 – 0.944) observed indicate that a large number of variance has been accounted for by the factor solution. The present principal component analysis provided a means for objective description of the interdependence in the original eleven egg quality characteristics of Isa Brown layer chickens.