Practical problems in the progeny testing of poultry

Extract

I propose taking a pretty wide interpretation of the term progeny testing. When selecting poultry for improved economic characters, most of these characters such as egg numbers, viability and disease resistance in which we are interested have a low heritability and consequently progeny testing is an essential poultry breeding technique. During the last 15 years in England we have mainly been trying to improve the economic characteristics of egg production, but now the Americans are showing us that if we follow closely their broiler industry we can develop a valuable industry for the production of poultry meat in Britain which makes better feed utilisation of scarce concentrated feeds than any other form of meat production. The heritability of meat conformation in poultry is high but I believe progeny testing will come into the picture of selection for better broiler strains, because such strains must be capable of growing fast and evenly with the most efficient feed conversion ratio whilst being housed together in large mobs of manv thousand of chicks.