Abstract: Studies on the rule of body growth of 0-20-week-old Rugao chicken as well as 12-week-old body measurements traits. The results were as follows: ①the difference of the bodyweight between male and female chicken was significant (P<0.01), the coherence of the bodyweight among the male chickens was relatively low; ②Gompertz model can excellently described the growth model of chicken bodyweight (R2>0.996), the growth point of inflection was at 6~7 weeks. The heritability of mature and fastigium bodyweight were 0.09, the heritability of estimate of the weight at birth、the average growth speed, fastigium growth age was 0.21, 0.32 and 0.37, respectively; ③The estimating results of the variance component and heritability of the bodyweight had significant difference when using wholesib and half-sib genetic model. The heritability of male chicken bodyweight was significant higher than that of female chicken (both of them had high heritability) when calculated by whole-sib genetic model. Bodyweight heritability descended with the increasing of the age in general, and the maternal effects was smaller when the age increased. The maternal effects on male was larger than female; the male chicken bodyweight heritability calculated by half-sib genetic model were different from that of female chicken: smaller before 7 week-old,equal at 8-9-week-old, larger at 10-12week-old; ④The male body measurements traits were significant larger than female (P<0.01) except that the chest angle was not significant. ⑤The correlation between 12-week-old chest angle and other body measurements traits was not significant. Most of other measurements had significant correlation (P<0.05, P<0.01). ⑥The heritability of live weight, body length, chest bone length,metatarsus length, metatarsus circumference, coronal length, coronal height, coronal color, metatarsus color, chest angle, chest width was 0.53, 0.11, 0.64, 0.92, 0.42, 0.16, 0.15, 0.52, 0.25, 0.16 and 0.40 respectively.

Key words: rugao chicken; bodyweight; body measurements; heritability