Comb Type, Behavior and Body Weight in Chickens

THE associated effects of specific alleles for a qualitative trait on quantitative characteristics has been studied in several organisms. Examples in chickens, which involved body weight, were given in the reports of Warren and Payne (1945) with sex-linked early feathering, Jerome et al. (1956) and Jaap and Grimes (1956) with plumage color genes, and Briles (1957) with blood group alleles. Pea comb is qualitatively inherited in chickens (Bateson, 1902). Comparisons of differences between pea and single comb chickens for body weight have been made by Kan et al. (1959), Collins et al. (1961) and Smith (1961). Their results however, are inconclusive. Crawford and Smyth (1961) have studied the relationship of certain plumage alleles on social and sexual behavior. Although comb size has been shown to influence the frequency of agonistic behavior in flocks (Siegel and Hurst, 1962; Dawson and Siegel, 1962) and to be a factor in the determination of…