The Relation of Total Weight and the Weight of the Component Parts of the Egg to Hatching Power

LANDAUER (1937) summarized the available evidence regarding the influence of egg weight on hatchability. Most of the investigations cited by Landauer indicated that large egg size tends to depress the hatching power of the egg. Small egg size has been shown to be compatible with high hatchability by some investigators while others have indicated that the opposite appears to be true. To what extent the methods of analyses used have contributed to these inconsistencies is not clear. The weight of the individual egg, the hen’s mean egg weight, and plus or minus deviations from the average egg weight of an individual have been used by various investigators to express the relationship between the two variables. The present investigation was undertaken to show how hatchability tends to vary with total egg weight, the weight of the individual parts of the egg, and relative egg weight. We are unaware of any work . . .