ABSTRACT:

A total of 200 one week old Japanese quail chicks constituting of 100 brown and 100 whiteplumage color were used to evaluate the correlation between bodyweight andmorphometric measurements. The two quail color lines where kept in battery cages. Feedand water where provided adlibitum throughout the experimental period. All birds wereallotted to 5 replicates and 2 treatments with a total of 20 birds per replicate. The measure ofassociations between traits was determined by the Pearson correlation coefficients.Significant positive correlations between shank length and body girth,(0.323**) shanklength and wing length,(0.201*) shank length and body length,(0.503**) shank length andbody weight,(0.508**) body girth and wing length,(.594**) body girth and bodylength,(0.261**) body girth and body weight, (.568**) wing length and bodylength,(0.594**) wing length and body weight (0.699**) at P < 0.01 alpha level among theBrown quails. Among the White quails correlations between shank length and bodygirth,(0.857**) shank length and wing length, (0.531**) shank length and bodylength,(0.831**) shank length and body weight, (0.786**) body girth and body length,(0.748**) body girth and body weight, (0.810**) wing length and body length, (0.503**)wing length and body weight (0.683**) were significantly positive at P < 0.01 alpha level.Pooled phenotypic correlations between body parameters of the two quails varieties showsignificantly (P < 0.01) positive association between shank length and body girth, shanklength and wing length, shank length and body length, shank length and body weight, bodygirth and wing length, body girth and body length, body girth and body weight, wing lengthand body length, wing length and body weight. Among the White color variety SL, BG, BLand WL were the best values correlated with bodyweight while WL, BG, SL and BL werebest among the browns when correlating with bodyweight as well. Combination of all linearbody morphometric traits had more precision than the use of single traits in all the quailsstrains investigated. The study reveals high association between body weight and bodylinear measurements in the two colour lines studied.