The cod liver oil used in Lot 4 had been absorbed in starch and held in corked bottles in the dark at an average of 50° F. for six months. This was designed as a test of the effect of storage in a dry mix on the anti-rachitic value of the oil. The oil fed to lots 1, 2, and 3 had been stored in corked bottles in the same place and for the same length of time as the "starchcod liver oil" mixture. Lot 2 served, therefore, as a control for Lot 4. The table on which these lots were reared was rotated a quarter turn every forty-eight hours so that an equal amount of light was received by all lots.

Two chicks died when one week old; one in Lot 3 (2% fresh cod liver oil) and one in Lot 4 (cod liver oil in dry mix). Deaths were apparently due to causes not connected with feeding. All other chicks grew normally until the sixteenth day. At this time the first symptoms of leg-weakness appeared in one chick in the lot receiving cod liver in the dry stored mixture (Lot 4). On the seventeenth day the symptoms of lameness, unsteady gait and apparent stiffness of the leg joints were general in this lot, and by the nineteenth day several chickens could walk only with great difficulty. These extreme cases were then treated with cod liver oil by medicine dropper at the rate of one or two drops per day. On the twenty-third day improvement was noted in the treated chicks (seven in number), while on the twenty-fifth day four of the five untreated chicks were prostrated and unable to walk. The latter were then given two drops each of cod liver oil, two per cent of cod liver oil was added to all mash fed thereafter, and no further oil was given to any chicks by dropper. One of the last chicks to be treated was completely prostrated before the oil was administered, and did not revive sufficiently to eat. It died on the twenty-sixth day. All others recovered and by the twenty-eighth day the acute symptoms of leg-weakness had disappeared. At that time the gait of all chicks was normal although the effects of the attack of legweakness were visible in the smaller size, lack of appetite and generally poor condition of most of the birds in this lot. They have since gained normally although they have not made up the weight and vigor which they lost during the leg-weakness period.

Growth in the other three lots has been normal and aside from one further death in Lot 2 (2% cod liver oil) probably not from nutritional causes, there has been no mortality. The rate of growth in the lots receiving 2%, 1% and 2% of cod liver oil has been practically identical.

Two conclusions seem justified from this experiment:

(1) Cod liver oil mixed with and stored in dry feed for six months has lost

its value as a preventive of legweakness while this value has been retained by oil kept in its original state under similar environmental conditions. The moist or unmixed oil was found to effect a rapid cure when administered by dropper or in the feed to chicks suffer

ing from leg-weak

ness.

(2) The minimal amount of the anti-rachitic substance required by chickens is contained in a quantity of cod liver oil equal to not more than one half percent of the total food in take. For the third week this is equal to about 43 milligrams per chick per day and for the fifth week to about 57 milligrams per chick per day. Addition of further increments of cod liver oil does not appear to increase the efficacy of this ration in preventing leg-weakness or promoting growth.

STORRS

Agricultural Experiment Station

STORRS, CONNECTICUT

A STATISTICAL STUDY OF EGG PRODUCTION
IN FOUR BREEDS OF THE DOMESTIC

FOWL

IN FOUR PARTS

PART I

EGG PRODUCTION IN WYANDOTTES

by

L. C. DUNN

A SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE RECORDS OF NINE INTERNATIONAL EGG LAYING CONTESTS HELD AT STORRS AGRICULTURAL

EXPERIMENT STATION, 1911-1920, UNDER THE DIRECTION

OF WM. F. KIRKPATRICK, PROFESSOR OF POULTRY HUS-
BANDRY IN THE CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL

COLLEGE.