HEREDITY IN POULTRY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 21 September 1938, Page 7

HEREDITY IN POULTRY

ADDRESS BY GENETICIST Some aspects of heredity in poultry breeding were discussed by Dr. O. H. Frankel, geneticist to the Wheat Research Institute, in an address to the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club last evening. Dr. Frankel emphasised that the breeder must realise the difference between the productivity of an individual bird and the transmission of productive capacity. A high producer might not beget high producers. He explained the bearing of. Mendel's laws of inheritance on constructive breeding of poultry, and referred in particular to those sex-linked characteristics which allowed the identification Of the sex of young chicks. • He suggested that inbreeding might in many instances be a very valuable method of stabilising valuable characteristics. In fact, to a certain degree, inbreeding was indispensable for the stabilisation of a successful breed. General discussion chiefly concerned whether breeding should be for type or productivity. Some speakers emphasised that show birds were not necessarily high producing. Dr. Frankel advised caution in adopting type standards since the existing knowledge of the physiological connexions between productivity and type was quite insufficient. -