Chick Hatch Weight Research Articles

Survey of line crosses in a Brown Leghorn flock. II. Relations of hatched chick weight of egg weight in inbred lines and their crosses.

Synopsis A preliminary study of the hatching weight of chicks of two pairs of pure lines and their reciprocal crosses shows that the relationship of net chick weight, excluding yolk sac, to egg weight, is constant for the lines ; although this is not so for an exceptional line selected for small size, but not examined in detail. Chicks from one pair of reciprocal matings are relatively larger than representatives of their parent lines, but those from the other are not. Detailed examination of the amount of egg material used to form the chick shows that two lines which produce the same relative size of chick do so because one line uses more of the egg, but utilises it less efficiently, than the other. Further, the different genotypes take different times to hatch, the hybrids being earlier than their corresponding dam line. There are differences between reciprocals in hatching time and in efficiency of egg utilisation, but they tend to be confounded. There is no evidence of an optimal egg size for relative...

Post Embryonic Growth in Relation to Egg Weight

THE close dependence of chick hatching weight on egg weight has been reported by many investigators (Upp, 1926; Galpin, 1938; Kosin et al., 1952). It has been generally conceded however, that the initial influence of egg size on chick size is short-lived and has no important effect on subsequent growth and could for all practical purposes be ignored. Goodwin (1961) however, has described the initial effect of egg weight on subsequent growth as being cumulative and has suggested that the influence of hatching egg size on market weight is of sufficient magnitude to be of practical importance in the broiler industry. To the extent that egg size effects on growth are environmental (e.g., due to age or season) the adequacy of random sample broiler tests and even experimental breeding and research investigations designed to reveal genetic differences in growth might also be questioned.Since further information on these egg size…