Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Data on Certain Factors Influencing the Fertility and Hatching of Eggs
There is a rather common belief that when hatching eggs run low in fertility the fault is chie?y or entirely in the male bird which is with the ?ock. For some reason which is difficult to understand very little in?uence is attributed in the popular mind to the females in causing poor results of this kind, the belief rather being that the male bird has an almost exclusive in?uence in determining fertility of eggs. It seems somewhat remarkable that this notion of the predominant in?uence of the male bird in determining the fertility of eggs among poultry should be so widespread, in view of the fact that the popular belief with reference to other domestic animals is exactly the opposite. For example, in cattle and horse breeding the fail ure of the female to become pregnant (the equivalent in part of the fertilization of the egg in poultry) is commonly attrib uted to some defect in the female rather than in the male. The standpoint which the known facts of biology lead one to take is that in all bisexual animals the in?uence of the two sexes is in general equal in determining whether any given egg shall or Shall not be fertilized. That is to say, there is on general grounds every reason to suppose that the infertility of eggs is as likely to be due to a defect of the female as to a defect of the male and vice versa. It seems desirable to determine with some precision whether this general statement is true for poultry or not. When the average fertility for a ?ock of hens runs low what proportion of this low fertility is to be attributed to the poor breeding performance of the hens and what proportion to the male birds? The practical importance of the question is obvious. If the man who is selling eggs for hatching can learn that one particular hen, for example, in his ?ock never pro duces a fertile egg, it will be greatly to the advantage of his trade to eliminate that bird from those which are producing his hatching eggs.
In order to bring out with completeness and precision the comparative in?uence of male and female birds on the fertility of eggs Tables VII and VIII have been prepared. These tables Show for each breeding pen the following facts: (i) The band number of the cockerel which was placed in that pen.
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