Analyses of records of official pedigree breeding stations in Lancashire and in Northern Ireland show that the ability of White Wyandottes to reproduce is subnormal in comparison with White Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds. A total of about 15,000 eggs for each breed is involved, and the samples came from many different farms. The numbers of chicks hatched per 100 White Wyandotte eggs incubated were 12.5 and 11.8 less than for White Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, respectively, at one station and 4.0 and 8.2 less at the other. These differences apparently resulted chiefly from infertility, though early embryonic mortality may also have been a factor. The subnormal reproduction is attributed to the pleiotropic action of some gene, or genes, determining the characteristics of White Wyandottes, or to linkage of deleterious genes with those making the breed.
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F. B. Hutt (1940) studied this question.