THE RELATION BETWEEN OVULATION FREQUENCY AND THE INCIDENCE OF FOLLICULAR ATRESIA FOLLOWING SURGICAL OPERATIONS IN THE DOMESTIC HEN

Abstract

THE REPORTS in the literature dealing with follicular atresia in the ovary of the bird have been largely confined to morphological descriptions of the process (Davis, 1942; Pearl and Boring, 1918; Dubuisson, 1906) and to mention of some of the agents which bring it about. Examples of these are environmental disturbances, (Stieve, 1918); injections of various steroids (Dunham and Riddle, 1942), subovulatory doses of pituitary preparations (Fraps and Dury, 1942), dried tissue preparations and egg white, proteins, and protein derivatives (Fraps and Neher, 1945); and operations on the ovary (Rothchild and Fraps, 1944). In none of these studies, however, was the incidence of atresia shown to be related to any of the variables within the population of birds treated with one of these agents. The present communication will attempt to do this, and will show that one of the most important factors which determines the incidence of atresia after abdominal operations is the birds’ frequency of ovulation preceding operation, and that the incidence of atresia varies in inverse proportion to this factor.