Effect of Growth Rate, Homozygosity and Heterozygosity of Chickens on the Sensitivity of Experiments

MANY factors can affect the sensitivity of an experiment. When the number of replications is increased an experiment can detect smaller differences among the treatments; if the environment is controlled, as in a laboratory, an experiment may become more sensitive than one performed in an uncontrolled environment. The choice of the experimental design, the genotype of the animals used and the scale of measurement can also influence the sensitivity. Some of the factors affecting sensitivity of experiments have been discussed in the chapter “Methods for increasing the accuracy of experiments” in Cochran and Cox (1957). A review of much of the literature on this subject, as it applies to mouse experiments, has been made by Biggers et al. (1958). They suggested that F1 hybrids between two inbred strains or samples from random-bred colonies should be tested to find those animals exhibiting a low variance of the trait to be measured …