Upright and pendulous combs commonly exist in most single-comb chicken breeds. Here, the phenotypic characteristics of upright and pendulous combs in chickens and association with growth rate and egg production were analyzed. Phenotypic frequencies of upright and pendulous comb were investigated in five chicken breeds; the phenotypic frequencies of complete pendulous comb (CPC) and partial pendulous comb (PPC) ranged from 10.1% to 29.0% and 21.8% to 65.3%, respectively. CPC hens produced more eggs than PPC hens (P < 0.05) in Nongda-3, Huainan and Wenchang breeds. In Huainan breed, CPC males were heavier than PPC males at 12 and 16 weeks of age, while CPC females were heavier at 24 weeks of age. PPC and CPC chickens have greater (P < 0.05) comb length, comb height and comb index than upright comb (UC) chickens. There was no significant difference in comb phenotypic frequency distribution between the offspring from UC(♂) × CPC(♀) and CPC(♂) × UC(♀); however, it differed (χ² = 45.12, P < 0.01) between offspring from UC(♂) × UC(♀) and CPC(♂) × CPC(♀). These results suggested that the comb phenotype does not appear to be Z-linked; the effective loci influencing the trait could be estimated in a further study.

中文翻译：

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鸡种直立和下垂梳的表型特征及其与生长速度和产蛋量的关系。

大多数单梳子鸡品种中普遍存在立式和下摆式梳子。在这里，分析了鸡的立式和摆式梳子的表型特征以及与生长速度和产蛋量的关系。在五个鸡种中调查了直立和下垂梳的表型频率。完整摆梳（CPC）和部分摆梳（PPC）的表型频率分别为10.1％至29.0％和21.8％至65.3％。在农大3，淮南和文昌品种中，CPC母鸡比PPC母鸡产卵更多（P <0.05）。在淮南品种中，CPC雄性在12和16周龄时重于PPC雄性，而CPC雌性在24周龄时重。PPC和CPC鸡比直立（UC）鸡具有更大的（P <0.05）梳长，梳高和梳理指数。UC（♂）×CPC（♀）和CPC（♂）×UC（♀）的后代在梳状表型频率分布上没有显着差异；但是，UC（♂）×UC（♀）和CPC（♂）×CPC（♀）的后代之间存在差异（χ²= 45.12，P <0.01）。这些结果表明梳状表型似乎不是Z-连锁的。影响该性状的有效基因座可在进一步研究中估算。