Systems of Breeding Designed to Utilize Heterosis in the Domestic Fowl

FEW will deny that the conventional system of poultry breeding combining mass selection with progeny testing and family selection has played a major role in raising the level of performance in the poultry population. Furthermore, a wider distribution of existing superior stocks would undoubtedly significantly raise the national production average. While it is important to devise ways of improving the conventional system of breeding by such techniques as selection indices, diallel crossing, analysis of part records, etc., some effort should be given to devising and testing new breeding systems which might be more efficient than those now practiced. The success of the corn breeder in forming inbred lines and combining them into superior hybrids has served as a challenge to all poultry breeders. No effort will be made to review the reports on inbreeding and hybridization in poultry or to discuss in detail the relative merits of this system of . . .