Selection of Chicks to Minimize Variation in Growth Studies

Abstract
The selection of chicks at various times after hatching was evaluated as a means of reducing weight variation between groups in growth studies. In two experiments, one involving 50 and the other 167 chicks, individual daily weights were correlated to weights on successive days of feeding. There was little correlation between chick weights before feeding to weights on successive days, but weights after 2 days of feeding correlated highly to weights on successive days. Approximately 50 to 80% of the weight variation in an assumed 7-day assay was accounted for by weights after 2 days of feeding.