Influence of Wheat Germ Oil on Semen Production of Cockerels

EVANS (1925) reported that if male rats after weaning are fed a diet which contains all necessary substances except vitamin E, they become sterile after they have been on the diet 90 to 150 days. Adamstone and Card (1934) found that after Rhode Island Red roosters had been kept for a year on a diet deficient in vitamin E they were still able to fertilize eggs, but that after two years on such a diet a few of the roosters were sterile. They concluded that although the testicles of chickens undoubtedly are injured by a dietary deficiency of vitamin E they are, nevertheless, more resistant to the injury than are the testicles of mammals. The experiment reported in this paper was made for the purpose of comparing the semen production of cockerels fed a diet to which wheat germ oil had been added as a source of additional vitamin E . . .