Heritabilities, Gene Interactions, and Correlations Associated with Certain Traits in the Domestic Fowl

Abstract

THE purpose of statistical procedure in breeding work is to furnish more critical information for the construction of intelligent breeding plans than can be obtained by a more or less intuitive analysis of the data concerned. A primary purpose of this paper is to show that many kinds of information can be extracted from the records of a particular flock by statistical procedure, then interpreted and applied in a practical way to formulate the breeding plan of the flock or strain. It might be well to point out at this time that the same techniques applied to another strain of birds may lead to estimates which will dictate a very different breeding plan. In order to present a report of this work in the most coherent manner it was decided to partition the report into sections according to the topics investigated. Ordinarily one would not…