The Effect of Selection for Body Weight and Rate of Production on Feed Efficiency of Egg Production

RISING feed costs, declining meat prices and mediocre egg prices have made poultry breeders increasingly conscious of the role of body weight and egg production in the laying hen. Waters (1931), Asmundson and Lerner (1933), Gyles et al. (1955), reported that selection influenced body weight. Literature on the improvement of egg production is voluminous (Goodale et al., 1922; Hayes and Sanborn, 1939; Briles and Allen, 1961; Marble, 1965), but the optimum body size for most efficient egg production has not been clearly established for birds of varying body weights within the same strain crosses. McCracken (1955) reported a pronounced variation in feed requirements to produce a pound of eggs between White Leghorns and inbred hybrids averaging approximately 2200 and 1800 grams respectively, favoring the inbred hybrids. In studies carried out by Glazener and Blow (1954) where egg production and body weight were essentially similar in two different lines of birds,…