February, 1921. SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



The Relation of the Keel Bone to Egg Production 



V. S. Asmundson, Poultry Department, University of British Columbia. 



63 



(Coneludod from the Januarj' Issue.) 



A.s lia^ been .stated before, the mea.sureiiient of the 

 width of the ;hips wa^ somewhat variable but con- 

 si.stent enough to show the value of this character 

 for .selection. There can be no doubt from the result 

 shown in table 5 that there is a significant correlation 

 with production. It will be noted that there is mark- 

 edly le.ss correlation to production in the fir.st period 

 than in the la.st two periods. A partial explanation 

 of this is found in the mean widths for laying and 

 nonlaying hens, or 7.072.5 ± .0425 cm and 6.5700 q: 

 .0170 cm respectively, showing that tibis measurement 

 is depeiulent to some extent on laying condition. 

 Tjiere is also a close relation to weight of bird as will 

 be seen from table 7. 



Patterson and Quisenberry (7) working with width 

 of body, found tjiat a bird showing a wide wedge wa.s 

 a better layer than one showing a narrow wedge, i. e., 

 narrow at hips. Tlie results of this experiment agree 

 with their results in this respect. 



Probably more attention has been paid to the pelvic 

 bones than to any oliher structure in the fowl's body 



by those seeking a guide to egg production. Hogan 

 (4) followed by Potter (8) years ago invented a 

 "system" for telling the layer from the nonlayer 

 based on the greater flexibility of the pelvic bones 

 and their distance apart. Kent (5) brought out very 

 clearly the relation between width at hips, distance 

 between pelvic bones, size of abdomen and thickness 

 of pelvic bones or body wall, to the lajing condition 

 of the bird. Two of tjiese correlations have been con- 

 sidered in thi,s present paper and confirm his results. 

 He found that di.stanee between pelvic bones and ab- 

 domen were more closely correlated with egg produc- 

 tion than other measurements. Bo far as this present 

 experiment goes, this is entirely in accord with these 

 results, the distance between ])elvic bone.s, .sihowing 

 the closer relation to actual laying condition. The 

 mean distance between pelvic bones was 3.5325 ±.0600 

 cm for the laying hens aJid 2.5562±.0233 cm for the 

 240 hens that were not laying. It is interesting to 

 note the increase in coeffioient of correlation from the 

 first laying period to the last as shown in table 5. 



Subject. 



Table 5. 



Relative. ' 



Width of Hips Total Egg Production 



No. of Months Laid .. 



Distance between Pelvic Bones 



Distan 



between Pelvic Bones 



Highest Monthly Egg Production 



Egg Production Nov. 1 — Feb. 28 

 Mar. 1— June 30 

 July 1— Oct. 31 



Total Egg Production . . .... 



No. of Months Laid 



Highest Monthly Egg Production 



Egg Produetion Nov. 1— Feb. 28 

 Mar. 1— June 30 

 July 1— Oct. 31 



Total Egg Production 



Coefficient of 

 Correlation 

 .3560 ±.0352 

 .2208 ±.0383 

 .2314 ±.0381 

 .1576±.0393 

 .3736 ±.0347 

 .3134±.0363 

 .3479 ±.0354 

 .3001 ±.0367 

 .2946±.0368 

 .1519±.0394 

 .2750±.0373 

 .3650±.0349 

 .3026 ±.0366 



Width ati Hips 



11 ighe,st Monthly Egg Production '. .2418±.0379 



Table 6 



