A New Factor, Not Vitamin G, Necessary for Hatchability

BYERLY, Titus, and Ellis (1933) found that diets consisting of cereal grains, their by-products, alfalfa leaf meal, minerals, and cod liver oil are deficient in some factor, or factors, necessary for the production of eggs of high hatchability. This deficiency is satisfied by range, milk, and certain protein concentrates of animal origin, but not by certain protein concentrates of vegetable origin. Recent investigations by Halpin, Holmes, and Hart (1933) indicate that many diets for laying hens are deficient in vitamin G, and that the hatchability on such diets is low. Their basal diet, composed of yellow corn, oats, wheat bran, wheat middlings, meat scraps, common salt, and cod liver oil, plus scratch feed, grit, and crushed oyster shell, gave a hatchability of only 11 percent whereas the addition of skimmilk or chopped alfalfa hay to the diet raised the hatchability to over 70 percent. In order to determine if vitamin . . .