Early Growth Rate of Possible Value as an Indication of Future Egg Production

MANY attempts have been made to find a reliable measure of the future egg production on non-pedigreed chickens. Jull, Quinn, and Godfrey (1933) reviewed earlier work and concluded from that and from their own experiments that skeletal type and egg production are not related. Schnetzler (1936) found that fast growing chicks grow larger, lay larger eggs, and beget faster growing offspring than slow growing chicks. Hammond and Burrows (1937) found that the female genital eminence is not a measure of future egg production. Hammond and Bird (1942) found that fast growing chicks use their feed most efficiently yet need not grow to be the largest chicks. They also found that under average conditions chicks reached the maximum variability in live weight at 6 weeks of age. Hammond (1934) reported the results of an experiment in which biweekly weights were recorded on several hundred Rhode Island Red pullets from hatching through . . .