Canonical correlation analysis for studying the relationship between egg production traits and body weight, egg weight and age at sexual maturity in layers

In this study, canonical correlation analysis was applied to layer data to estimate the relationships of egg production with age at sexual maturity, body weight and egg weight. For this purpose, it was designed to evaluate the relationship between two sets of variables of laying hens: egg numbers at three different periods as the first set of variables (Y) and age at sexual maturity, body weight, egg weight as the second set of variables (X) by using canonical correlation analysis. Estimated canonical correlations between the first and the second pair of canonical variates were significant (P < 0.01). Canonical weights and loadings from canonical correlation analysis indicated that age at sexual maturity had the largest contribution as compared with body weight and egg weight to variation of the number of egg productions at three different periods.