Phenotypic and Genetic Characterization of Vietnamese H'mong Chicken

This study aimed at (1) to evaluate the present status of H¿mong chicken and describe their phenotypic characteristics and production system, (2) to assess genetic diversity of Hmong chicken population. A total of 55 households in three villages (Phieng Cam, Chieng Chan and Chieng Noi) of Maison District, Sonla province were surveyed. Blood samples of 36 individuals were analyzed using 29 microsatellite markers. The result showed that body weights of chickens in Chieng Chan were lower than in Phieng Cam and Chieng Noi. There was no difference in body weight among the three feather colour variants. No difference was found in most reproduction traits among three villages and three feather colour variants. The results of genetic diversity assessment indicated that the expected heterozygosity varied between 62.7% to 66.8% for three populations tested. The genetic differentiation of three populations was at around 2%. The result of pairwise differentiation test indicated that significant differences were observed between population Chieng Chan with population Phieng Cam and population Chieng Noi but between feather colour variants showed no significant difference.