The Effect of Pure Gossypol on Egg Hatchability and Weight

THE data of Heywang, Denton, and Bird (1949) show that the hatchability of eggs was not lowered when laying pullets were fed diets containing enough cottonseed meal to supply .012 percent free gossypol, but that hatchability was lowered appreciably when the diets contained enough cottonseed meal to supply .024 or .036 percent free gossypol. However, it was not possible to state definitely that only the gossypol in the cottonseed meal was responsible for the lowered hatchability because Boatner and co-workers (1948) reported that the growth of young chickens was only slightly retarded when pure gossypol was included in their diet. If components of cottonseed meal other than gossypol were chiefly responsible for cottonseed meal retarding the growth of young chickens, it seemed probable that they would also have an adverse effect on hatchability. Accordingly, the following statement was made in the summary of the published paper on our hatchability experiment: . . .