ABSTRACT

 Improvement in the quality of egg as a constituent of human nutrition is of utmost concern to researchers. Accordingly, this work on the effect of age, genotype and location on eggshell thickness is geared towards proffering possible combination(s) of any of the above stated factors to increase egg quality. Other major objectives of the study are to find out if age; genotype and location have effect on eggshell thickness. The data used for this analysis were secondary data collected from the Agricultural Development programme (ADP) Urnuahia .The three factors considered in the experiment were age, genotype and location, each of which consisted of four levels. On the basis of no interaction of the above mentioned factors, the conventional methods of analysis of the forms of multiple latin square design (multiple latin square design with independent squares and multiple latin design with common row effect) were used for data analysis. Considering the statistical analysis carried out, age and genotype have significant effect on eggshell thickness, while location has no significant effect on eggshell thickness. The means of the four levels of age and genotype were each separated using Duncan's Multiple Range Test at 5% level of significance. Among the means of age, mean of month three (M3) differed significantly from that of the other months. Again, mean of GLxLC (G4 ) was different from that of the other levels of genotype. Additionally, with regard to the results of the analysis, 1 wish to recommend that poultry farmers should consider Month three (age) and GLXLC (genotype) most. This is because they made the greatest contribution to the significant effect of the factors (age and genotype). In order to minimize error, researchers should also give preference to the use of multiple Latin square design with common row effect.