Animal breeding / by A.L. Hagedoorn.

  • Hagedoorn, Arend L. (Arend Lourens), 1880-1953.
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Animal breeding / by A.L. Hagedoorn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    354 Appendix is that I know enough about the capacity of our stock to produce eggs to say that the egg production achieved by a customer is an accurate yardstick of his management on his own farm. Our egg production figures on our own farms are somewhat below the actual egg laying potential. We have been using April-hatched pullets for our work which on the whole do not lay quite the number of eggs that they would have had they been March-hatched. The April-hatched are rather late coming into lay in the autumn. However, under our management our Rhodes now lay a consistent 190 eggs per bird hen housed. Our Light Sussex lay a consistent 160 eggs during the same period of 48 weeks. The cross, however, of the two breeds in the hands of those of our customers who give them good management, pro¬ duce a hen housed egg average of 190 to 220, some of which improvement is apparently due to earlier hatching and the quicker maturing of the hybrid. Most of the improvement must be attributed to hybrid vigour. Henry Wallace and other geneticists can take the credit for an annual increase in the U.S. maize crop of some 600 million bushels. Theirs is the fantastic story of the breeding of hybrid maize where it is found that if certain in-bred lines of maize are crossed the ultimate crop yields 23 per cent, heavier on average than maize which is propagated by the old methods. This is only part of the story, which is also one of breeding maize to suit the harvesting machinery, to suit the soil and the climate, and to be resistant to diseases and pests. Henry Wallace jun. has now emulated his father by breeding highly productive poultry, the breeding method closely following the methods of the maize breeders. He carries on many different lines of closely in-bred poultry, practically all of which have a low stamina and produc¬ tivity. However, when he crosses certain of these lines, bring¬ ing, like the maize breeders, four in-bred lines together, he produces his Hy-line chick, which is a winner. Last season he sold 15 million chicks at double the hatchery price. A big part of Wallace's work consists of testing out innumerable crosses of his in-breds to find which crosses are the real winners, to be used for the production of his commercial chick. Under good manage¬ ment his Hy-line chicks in American conditions have an expec¬ tation of a hen housed egg average of 200 to 260 eggs in 51 weeks. In Britain all who are progeny-testing are just working with pure breds. This is only half the job. On our farm we assume that