442 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XIV, No. 10 
Table VII .—Feed consumption of the six lots of hens fed cottonseed products 
Total feed consumed. 
Tot No. 
1 
2 
3 
4 
■5 
6 
Food compared. 
40 per cent cottonseed meal. 
30 per cent cottonseed meal. 
... .do.. 
40 per cent extracted cottonseed kernels. 
0.2 per cent gossypol. 
30 per cent raw cottonseed kernels. 
Per lot. 
Per bird. 
Cottonseed 
product. 
Pounds. 
Pounds. 
Pounds. 
148.7 
29. 7 
II. 9 
152. 5 
30-5 
9.2 
147 - 7 
29*5 
8.9 
132.6 
26. 1 
a 10. 6 
29-5 
5-8 
, &.0117 
28.6 
4.8 
1-43 
a This is equivalent to 14.6 pounds of cottonseed meal on basis of nitrogen content. 
& This amount of gossypol (5.3 gm.) is equivalent to 1.75 pounds of raw cottonseed kernels. 
EFFECT ON COLORATION OF THE YOLK 
It has been noted frequently that eggs from hens fed cottonseed meal 
show a peculiar brownish discoloration of the yolk, giving them the 
appearance of very old eggs. Several eggs from each of the cottonseed- 
meal lots were examined, but seemed to be of normal appearance. There 
were no eggs laid by lot 5 (fed gossypol). Possibly, if a diet of inter¬ 
mediate toxicity between the diet of lot 5 and the diets of lots 1, 2, 3, 
and 4 had been fed—that is, so that laying was not entirely prevented— 
there would have been some abnormal appearance in the eggs. Out of 
10 eggs examined in the lot fed raw cottonseed kernels the yolks of 4 
were very perceptibly affected with the brown discoloration. The other 
yolks were affected but slightly, or not at all. The data are rather 
meager, but at least indicate that, when this phenomenon occurs in 
eggs, it may be due to gossypol which is unchanged, owing to insufficient 
cooking of the cottonseed. Whether this phenomenon is due to the 
peculiar pigments of the cottonseed or to some physiological action of 
gossypol on the fowl has not been ascertained. The authors are of the 
opinion that the discoloration is not due to the deposition of gossypol 
or related substance in the yolk, such as occurs with carotin and xantho- 
phyll. This opinion is based on the fact that, although gossypol is a 
fat-soluble pigment, it readily forms salts which are not fat-soluble and 
is also so easily oxidized that one would not expect it to be stored as 
such in egg fat. Thus, it does not occur in milk fat or body fat of animals 
fed with cottonseed meal. In fact, Palmer and Eccles (9) have shown 
that cottonseed meal tends to produce a colorless butter, owing to the 
very small amounts of carotin and xanthophyll present. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH SWINE 
As a result of our preliminary experiments (16) with rats, rabbits, and 
pigs, in which it was shown that raw cottonseed and gossypol were 
highly toxic, it appeared that the cooked kernels, and therefore cotton¬ 
seed meal, w T ere decidedly less toxic by reason of some transformation of 
