Recently safflower meal has become an important feed ingredient in this country. It has been used mainly for dairy and beef cattle rations, because much safflower meal is made from unhulled seed. With the advent of the laboratory processed decorticated safflower meals, nutritional tests were needed to evaluate its use for poultry rations.
Criteria used were growth, feed efficiency, pancreas weight, metabolizable energy value and protein digestibility. Rockhorn cockerels (White Leghorn×Plymouth Rock) were distributed to groups of 15 birds each. The experimental diets were fed to 10 day old chicks for 2 weeks. All of the protein in the diets were supplied by either the fish meal, the sufflower meal, the soybean meal or the combination of each of them.
The results obtained were as follows.
1. The diet with all of the protein from a high-protein sufflower meal gave 70% of the gain of the control on fish meal and feed efficiency of the chicks were considerably lower.
2. The addition of lysine resulted in improvement in gain and feed conversion, but the addition of methionine had little beneficial effect.
3. Decorticated safflower meal was low in essential amino acid lysine and for chicks these lacks were made good by fish meal.
4. The metabolizable energy values for various samples of safflower meal showed step-wise decrease as the crude fiber content of the meals increased. The metabolizable energy value of the decorticated meal containing 49% protein was 1.86Kcal/g and it was considerably lower than that of 45% protein soybean meal.
5. Apparent protein digestibility for various samples of safflower meals ranged from 79% to 85%.

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Two experiments were conducted to determine calcium and phosphorus requirements for White Leghorn growing chicks. In the first experiment, twelve experimental diets of various amounts of calcium (0.5, 0.75, 1.0 and 1.25%) and phosphorus (0.48, 0.60 and 0.72%) were fed the female growing chicks of 4-8 weeks of age. In the second experiment, eight diets of various amounts of calcium (0.5, 0.75 1.0 and 1.25%) and phosphorus (0.48 and 0.60%) were fed the male and female growing chicks of 4-10 weeks of age. All experimental diets were primarily composed of corn and soybean meal with 3% fish meal, and graded levels of calcium and phosphorus were furnished by calcium carbonate and dicalcium phosphate. Calcium and phosphorus requirements were determined by measuring weight gain, feed efficiency and percent tibia ash.
It was indicated that the calcium levels required for normal growth and bone development was much lower in the cases of the lower phosphorus level (0.48%) in all the experiments. But in the lower phosphorus level, the growth of chicks fed the diets in higher calcium level (1.25%) was much lower.
In the higher phosphorus levels (0.60 and 0.72%) in the diet, the higher calcium level (1.25%) did not show the deterioration of the growth and feed efficiency.
It appeared that calcium and phosphorus requirements for the male chicks are much more than those for female chicks.
From the results of above experiments, it is recommended that the calcium and phosphorus requirements for the growing chicks of 4-8 or 10 weeks of age, should be 0.75% and 0.60%, respectively.

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The present study was performed to analyse the data from three years' records of White Leghorns consisting of two strains (WL-D, WL-E), Barred Plymouth Rocks (BPR), New Hampshires (NH) and Rhode Island Reds (RIR), which had been bred at the former Omiya Livestock Breeding Station of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Laying performance was recorded every day throughout the pullet year using the trapnest, and eggs were also weighed individually every day. Heritabilities of some economical traits and genetic correlations among laying performances were estimated.
1. Age at the first egg ranged from 170 to 199 days, i.e. Barred Rocks matured earlier about 30 days than D strain of White Leghorns. Average body weight at the first egg in the three dual-purpose breeds was above 2, 000g, but that in the White Leghorns was around 1, 550g. Average egg weight in pullet year was generally small, ranging from 51.3 (WL-D) to 56.8g (RIR). Time interval from the first egg to average egg weight was the shortest in Rhode Island Reds (66.8 days), and was the longest in Barred Rocks (89.4 days). Survivors' egg production for 365 days showed a fairly good record in all breeds. Among them, that of Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds averaged 279.7 and 276.4 eggs, respectively. Total weight of eggs produced for pullet year was the highest in Rhode Island Reds (15, 699.8g), and was the lowest in New Hampshires (12, 561.2g) (Table 1).
2. Heritability estimates for age at the first egg, body weight at the first egg and average egg weight in pullet year were considerably high, being above 0.3. It was noticeable that heritabilities of time interval from the fist egg to average egg weight were high (0.40-0.65) in all breeds except for New Hampshires showing a low value of 0.17. The estimates for laying performance substantially agreed with that reported by previous workers (Table 2).
3. Genetic and phenotypic correlations of body weight and age at the first egg, average egg weight to the annual production record were of considerably high and negative. There appeared a higher correlation coefficients above -0.5 between age at the first egg and time interval from the first egg to average egg weight (Table 3 and 4).

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Artificial insemination in pheasants was reseached in this experiment. Seven Honshu Copper Pheasants, Phasianus soemmerringi scintillans, (1 male and 6 females), 3 Lesser Copper Pheasants, Phasianus soemmerringi scintillans, (1 male and 2 females) in special pheasant's aviary, and 3 Green Pheasants, Phasianus colchicus tohkaidi, (1 male and 2 females) in individual cages were used.
Semen was collected by the abdominal massage method of Burrows and Quinn (1935). Immediately after collection semen was diluted with Ringer's solution to the ratio of 1:4, and 0.05ml semen was inseminated into the female once a week. All eggs were weekly put into the incubator for chicken, and fertility and hatchability were researched.
Then results were obtained as follows:
1) On Copper Pheasant, the fertility was 90.1%, and the hatchability 85.3% to fertilized and 76.9% to incubated eggs, respectively: on Green Pheasant, 77.5%, and 87.1% and 67.5%.
2) The average volume of semen collected by the massage method once a week was 0.02ml in pheasant, and the initial motility of semen was 90%.
3) The numbers of aggs in a breeding season were 19 (11-40) in Copper Pheasant and 27 (18-35) in Green Pheasant.
4) From the above mentioned results, the breeding by artificial insemination in pheasants was recognized to be possible.

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To elucidate the relationship between the fertility of hens and the sperm-agglutinating antibodies in their serum, the fertility of eggs taken from the hens immunized with semen only and with semen-adjuvant emulsion and from the control hens was compared.
1. No significant effects of the immunization were observed on the fertility for 2 to 7 days following single insemination. A slight decrease in fertility was observed for 8 to 14 days in the hens intraveanously immunized, which possessed the highest antibodies titer.
2. The following regressive formulas exsisted between the antibodies titer (X) in the serum and the fertility of eggs laid in 2 to 7 days (Y₁) or in 8 to 14 days following single insemination (Y₂). Y₁=-4.00X+86.29, Y₂=-6.93X+59.63.
3. No different fertility was observed between the hens passively immunized with heteroimmune cock sperm-agglutinating antibodies and the control hens
A slight deteriorative effects on the fertility due to the active immunization of semen was observed from the above data, but not statistically significant enough to attribute the low fertility in the hens following successive inseminations as seen in the practical field to the immunization of semen via uterus.

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Influences of dietary protein level, length of experimental period, difference in breeds of chicks and seasonal variation were evaluated on the data obtained by biological assay of available energy in feedstuffs with growing chicks.
1. Effect of dietary protein level
Mathematical analyses of the relationship between body weight gain and dietary levels of energy and protein revealed that the protein level of the reference diets for biological assay of available energy with day-old and 4-week-old chicks should be kept about 23% and 21%, respectively. Small variation of dietary protein level was expected to have little influence on the result of the bioassay.
Three diets containing 19, 21 and 23% of protein with constant energy level were fed to chicks of 4-week-old chicks for 4 weeks in Expt. 509. Growth rate of chicks on these diet were almost identical, suggesting that the mathematical considerations is reliable. Therefore, available energy of feedstuffs containing protein can be estimated by directly replacing cornstarch in the reference diet, provided the increase of dietary protein level by this replacement is less than 2%.
2. Effect of length of experimental period
Available energy of test diets (x) can be estimated from the weight gain (y) of chicks on the diet with the equation (1), where a is constant, b regression coefficient, r correlation coefficient, S_yy and S_xx sum of squares of y and x, respectively. These figures are estimated with the data on reference diets. n and p in this equation are numbers of lots of chicks fed the reference and test diets, respectively. t_α(n-2) is t-value in t-table
x=(y-a)/b±t_α(n-2)•√S_yy(1-r²)/n-2•√1/n+1/p+(x-x)²/S_xx/b……(1)
with probability of α and (n-2) degrees of freedom. Therefore, the bigger the n, p and b are, and the closer to 1 the γ is, the smaller fiducial limit for the estimate x is expected.
In Table 3, length of experimental period, b, 95% fiducial limit for b, r and 95% fiducial limit for x were summarized. It is suggested that 4 weeks of experimental period is necessary to get satisfactory result of bioassay, when starting chicks are used. This is because of the smaller b and r, and therefore, larger fiducial limit for x is obtained with experimental period shorter than 4 weeks. Two weeks of experimental period were shown to be quite satisfactory with 4-week-old chicks. At the slight sacrifice of thee accuracy of the estimate, the period could be as short as 1 week.
Bioassay with starting chicks has an advantage of estimation without regard to the difference in feed intake of chicks, while bioassay with older chicks has a merit of a shorter experimental period.
3. Difference in breeds of chicks and seasonal variation
In Table 4, b value, i.e. the change of body weight gain per unit change of dietary energy level, of various pure- and crossbred chicks were compared. No significant difference in b value was observed among the different breeds. No consistent seasonal variation of b was obtained in various experiments conducted in different seasons.

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Meat of 10-week-old cockerels of White Leghorns (WL), Barred Plymouth Rocks (BPR), White Plymouth Rocks (WPR), New Hampshires (NH), Nagoyas (NG), Dominant White Comish (WC)× WPR, WC×NH, WC×BPR, WC×WL, WPR×NH, WPR×BPR, WPR×WL, BPR×NH, BPR×WL, and NH×WL was tasted by the panel for the blind comparison tests. The panel consisted of 7-8 persons. Meat of legs of these birds was cooked at 120°C in an oven for 2 hours after the 24-hour-storage at 5°C. Panel preferences were tested on a pair of samples differing in breeds or crosses of chickens. No statistically significant differences in the taste were observed among the breeds and crosses used in these experiments (Table 2, Fig. 1).

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