General and Specific Combining Abilities for Egg Production Traits in a Two-Way Cross Between South African Local and Commercial Chicken Breeds

This study aimed to determine the general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) for egg production in a two-way cross between Potchefstroom Koekoek (PK) and Lohmann Brown (LB) chicken breeds. The study used 352 chickens in a completely randomized design. A total of 524 eggs were collected from the pure and crossbred chickens. R (Version 4.4.2) was used for data analysis. The results showed that the GCA effects were highly significant (p