Qualitative traits in animal for selection

• Growth rate – growth rate is normally measured as either body weight or body length. This trait is of great economic importance for all animal species as faster growth rate speeds up the turnover of production. Improved growth rates show that farmed animals utilize their feed more efficiently through a correlated response.
• Survival rate – survival rate may take into account the degrees of resistance to diseases. This may also see the stress response as animal under stress is highly vulnerable to diseases. The stress animal experience could be of biological, chemical or environmental influence.
• Meat quality – the quality of animal is of great economic importance in the market. Meat quality usually takes into account size, meatiness, and percentage of fat, colour of flesh, taste, shape of the body, ideal oil etc.
• Age at sexual maturation – The age of maturity in animal species is another very important attribute for farmers as during early maturation the species divert all their energy to gonad production affecting growth and meat production and are more susceptible to health problems.
• Fecundity – As the fecundity in animal is usually varies according to external factors like environment and nutrition.
• Number of eggs in Chicken – Number of eggs in chicken is based on the environmental factor like duration of light, feed supplement and body condition of chicken.