Four Generations of Fowls Bred for Resistance to Neoplasms

Abstract

IN A PREVIOUS communication by one of us (F. B. H., 1938), it was pointed out that neoplasms caused over 38 percent of all deaths among 1,922 fowls dying during the six-year period, 1931–37, at two laying tests in New York. It was also shown that in this same population 87 percent of all deaths were caused by diseases thus far not amenable to control by sanitation, immunization, elimination of carriers, and other orthodox procedures currently recommended for the control of poultry diseases. Because of this situation, an experiment was begun in the spring of 1935 to test the feasibility of breeding strains of White Leghorns resistant to some of these diseases. A brief report of the first three years of this work was given earlier by Hutt, Bruckner, and Cole (1939). In the present paper, we present results of the first five years’ work. These include the unselected . . .