Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 3, 2026

In Ovo Feeding of Commercial Broiler Eggs: An Accurate and Reproducible Method to Affect Muscle Development and Growth
Published on: September 20, 2021
Genotype - hatch interactions as a source of bias in estimating genetic components of variance for eight-week weight
1University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minn..
Abstract:
Data on 16,557 chicks from 198 sire groups were analyzed to determine the importance of genotype-hatch interactions as sources of bias in the estimation of genetic parameters for eight-week weight in poultry. Estimates of heritability for eight-week weight obtained from a paternal half-sib correlation were .27±.04 and .29±.04 for males and females respectively when the sire component of variance was unconfounded with the sire-hatch interaction variance. If the sire-hatch interaction effects were confounded with the sire effects in an intra-hatch analysis the corresponding estimates of heritability would be .30 and .35 for males and females respectively. No attempt was made to artificially create differences in the hatch environments.The ratio of the dam-hatch interaction variance to the dam component of variance as compared with the sire-hatch interaction variance to the sire component gave a slight indication of a greater degree of importance of the interaction of non-additive genetic-environment effects than additive x environmental effects in the male progeny but not in the female progeny.
Related Concept Videos
Background and Environment Affect Phenotype
An example of how genetic background affects phenotype can be seen in horses. The Extension gene in horses is responsible for their coat color. A wild-type gene (EE) produces black pigment in the coat, while a mutant gene (ee) produces red pigment. A...
Genetics of Speciation
Complementation Tests
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...
Lethal Alleles
Lucien Cuénot discovered lethal alleles in 1905 while studying the inheritance of coat color in mice. The agouti gene is responsible for the color of the coat in mice. This gene codes for an agouti-signaling protein, which is responsible for melanin distribution in mammals. The wild-type allele gives rise to gray-brown coat color in mice, while the mutant allele gives rise to yellow coat color. In addition to coat color, the agouti gene is associated with the yellow...
Epistasis
Hardy-Weinberg Principle

