The Relationship between Feathering and Body Weight in Broiler Chickens

Commercial broiler chickens are usually fast feathering white birds as these have fewer pin feathers at processing. The faster feathering birds are also less prone to cannibalism. Rapid feathering in poultry is controlled by a recessive sex-linked gene (symbolised by k), the dominant allele (K) producing slow feathering. (In birds, the male is the homogametic sex.) Many poultry geneticists (Serbrovsky, 1922; Warren, 1925; Jaap and Morris, 1937; Warren and Payne, 1945; Darrow and Warren, 1944; Glazener and Jull, 1946; Hale, 1952; Pilla, 1958; and others) have observed rapid feathering in the chicken and some have tried to determine if a relationship exists between it and body weight. The data from our 1961 broiler breeding programme was analysed. In this year the chickens had been classified according to sire, sex, hatch and type of feathering. Some five week, and all ten week, weights were recorded. The five week…