To investigate the effect of cellulase on barley ration for layers, feeding experiment and determination of metabolizable energy were performed.
Thirty White Leghorn layers were divided into two groups, to one of which was fed the basal ration containing nearly 50% of barley and to another group was fed the basal ration plus 0.4% cellulase from Trichoderma koningi. The experiment lasted twelve weeks, at the middle of which the control and the cellulase-fed group were reversed. That is, in the latter six weeks cellulase was fed to the previous control group, and vice versa.
The results in the first six weeks and in the latter six weeks are as follows.
(a) In the first six weeks, the egg production of the control group lowered rapidly, while the cellulase-fed group maintained 60% egg production. Feed intake and body weight decreased in the control, while being normal in the treated group. There were no statistical differences in egg weight, thickness of egg-shell, albumin height and haugh unit between both groups. Metabolizable energy of the basal ration was 2820cal/g dry matter, while that of the cellulase-added ration was 2903cal/g dry matter.
(b) In the latter six weeks, when the addition of cellulase was reversed, the egg production of the cotrol group (previously cellulase-added group) decreased in the same way as in the first six weeks. There was a tendency in the boody weight to increase in the treated group and decrease in the control group. Feed intake was normal in both groups.

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We studied the effect of cellulase (crude enzyme produced by Trichoderma koningi) on the digestibility of barley by laying hen with artificial anus.
When 0.3% of cellulase was supplemented to the ration which contained 67.5% of barley the digestibility of the experimental ration (dried bases) increased about 3% and this difference was statististically significant with 1% level. The increase of the digestibility was remarkable in carbohydrate.
Total digestible nutrients of barley showed about 67%, but increased up to about 70% by the supplementatation of cellulase.

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During the experiments carried out in this laboratory to study the effect of different diets on the performance of breeding hen of White Cornish, abnormalities such as encephalomalcia, paralysis, convulsions in legs and haemorrhage around the navel were observed among the newly-hatched chicks from these hen. Rates of abnormal chicks against the total number of chicks hatched were higher than 30% and increased gradually with the length of feeding period up to 100%. Fertility and hatchability were also extremely low. The experimental diets were kept in the store-house of this Institute for about 6 months during the cold season when the abnormal chicks were first observed.
Fortiüication of B vitamins and menadione was ineffective to improve fertility and hatchability and to prevent the abnormality in chicks. Fortification of the mixture of B vitamins, menadione, stabilized and coated vitamin A and D supplements, d-α-tocopheryl acetate with 1% of butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT) to the breeding diet was effective to improve the reproductive traits, While the injection of dl-α-tocopheryl acetate to the egg was ineffective. This favorable effect of the vitamins was observed as early as one week after feeding them.
Accordingly in the third experiments, the diet was fortified with 100mg of d-α-tocopheryl acetate with 1mg of BHT per kg diet or with 1mg of BHT alone per kg diet. BHT of this level alone was ineffective while the tocopherol improved the fertility and hatchability significantly and reduced the number of abnormal chicks to almost negligible.
One hundred and three chicks from the hen on diets without fortification of tocopherol were fed purified diet with 40mg d-α-tocopheryl acetate per kg diet for 3 weeks, and thereafter fed the stock diet of this Institute. They grew normally, laid and showed reproductive activity, except 5 chicks died within the initial 5 days.
It is concluded the abnormality observed among newly-hatched chicks is due to the nutritional disturbance correlated with vitamin E in the breeding diet.

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The effects of monthly hatches on various performance traits were studied with pedigreed chickens originated from the same parents throughout a year. The characters analysed in this report are age of sexual maturity, body weight at first egg and at twelve months of age, egg weight at ten months of age, pullet year egg production, and adult viability.
It is concluded that the age of sexual maturity depends primarily on changes in daylength occuring during the growing period, and thus should be longest for the June hatch and shortest for the December hatch under natural daylight. The dependency of the character on the day length is best explained by fitting a quardratic equation,
y=161-2.05x+0.25x²
in which y stands for sexual maturity in days and x for the difference between day length in hours at sexual maturity and hatching dates.
Although body weight at sexual maturity shows high correlation with the age of sexual maturity, rather poor ranking correspondence of sire group's records of these two traits suggests that the genetic correlation may differ substantially from the phenotypic association. Body weight at twelve months of age was largest in the May hatch and smallest in the July, the difference being approximately 400 grams. Two measures of body weight were negatively correlated each other.
Annual egg poduction starting from first egg was highest for the April hatch and lowest for the September, whereas egg size at ten months of age was largest in the Febuary hatch and smallest in the September. Thus, the Febuary hatch or early spring hatch is more profitable than fall hatches.
Egg production pattern, defined as the pattern of average monthly production rate starting from onset of production up to 540 days of age of pullets hatched contemporally, shows distinct features characterized by one or two production peaks with or without a sharp decline occuring during winter season. When birds encounter winter before they go to their production peak, uni-modal production pattern which has only one peak is seen (i. e. June and July), while bi-modal pattern characterized by the winter decline will be observed otherwise (i. e. December through April). Some applications of the results to the techniques of artificial lighting were discussed.
Sire by hatch interaction was significant only in age of sexual maturiurity (p _??_ .05) and twelve omnths body weight (p<.01). Genetic correlation of egg production between spring and fall hatches after pooling three months of data was practically none, which suggests ranking of sire groups hatched in spring and fall lucks its consistency. Implications to selection and performance test involving seasonal difference were also discussed.

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The effects of using different handling methods and hypertonic diluents for recovery of sperm motility were studied with chicken semen diluted 1 to 3 and stored. The following handling methods were employed just before insemination: (a) stored semen was centrifuged' supernatant discarded and resuspended to the original volume in an isotonic phosphate buffer (16.34g Na₂HPO₄ and 5.16g NaH₂PO₄•H₂O per liter) containing fructose (4mg/ml), (b) stored semen was diluted further 1 to 5 with the isotonic buffer and reconcentrated as described in (a), and (c) 1 part distilled water was added to 2 parts stored semen followed by reconcentration as described in (a). The results obtained are as follows.
1. When semen was stored at room temperature for 6 hours in phosphate buffers with concentrations 2 to 5 times that of isotonic concentration, recovery of sperm motility was greatest at 2 times isotonic concentrations after addition of four volumes of the isotonic buffer or addition of 0.67 volumes of distilled water to the stored semen, whereas the loss of motility was irreversible at a concentration 5 times isotonic.
2. Fertility tests indicated that the recovery of sperm motility just before insemination was not necessary for semen stored 2 days at 2°C in a hypertonic SGF (93.47g sucrose, 23.77g glycine, 4g fructose, 2g dihydrostreptomycin per liter, and 4ml 0.3M KOH added to 1 liter the solution)-phosphate buffer (2 times isotonic concentrations) which the mixing rate of the SGF solution and the phosphate buffer is 1 to 1 (Δ=-1.24°C), however, fertility was improved when the stored semen was reconcentrated to the original volume after recovery of the sperm motility.
Storage with the hypertonic solution resulted in no improvement really since fertility increased in Trial 1 but decreased in Trial 2 as compared to an isotonic phosphate buffer, when reconcentration was employed just before insemination.
3. On the average, fertility was improved slightly with a hypertonic phosphate buffer as compared to a hypertonic SGF-phosphate buffer, but no apparent trend for fertility was found between the handling methods.

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Data on the effects of sex-ratio on the hatching time were collected for 10, 206 hybrid chicks between Rhode Island Red males and Rhode Island White females from four hatching examination during the 25th of July to the 7th of September in 1965. The hatching times ofthe chicks were recorded at 2 or 4 hour intervales from the start of hatching to 26 hours.
After hatching, all the chicks were immediately distinguished from each other by sexing with their feather colours.
The results obtained were summarized as follows:
1) At the beginning of the hatching period, from the start of hatching to 8 hours, female chicks were significantly more than males (p=0.01). On the contrary to the end of the hatching period, male chicks were significantly more than females (p=0.01).
2) During 8-16 hours after hatching, male chicks were almost similar to female chicks.
3) The hatching time of female chicks was about 2.2 hours earlier that than of males.

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The genetic and phenotypic correlations between egg weight and some economic traits using three years' data of White Leghorns consisting of two strains (WL-D, WL-E), Barred Plymouth Rocks (BPR), New Hampshires (NH) and Rhode Island Reds (RIR), which were just the same those used in the preceding report, (Saeki et al., Japan. Poultry Sci., 3, 76, 1966), were estimated. A total of 885 pullets produced from 381 dams and 120 sires were available for study. Egg weight and egg number were recorded individually every day throughout the pullet year.
There existed a positive correlatation of 0.2-0.6 between average weight of the first egg and average egg weight in pullet year. The genetic and phenotypic correlations between egg weight and body weight at the first egg, and between egg weight and age at the first egg were estimated to be +0.3-+0.5 except for NH and RIR and +0.3-+0.6, respectively.
The correlation between egg weight and survivors' egg production was the range of -0.2--0.4, suggesting simultaneous selection for these two traits seems to be difficult in the same strain.
A negative correlation between egg weight and time interval from the first egg to average egg weight was estimated in most cases. It suggests that the heavier the weight of the first egg is, the shorter is the time interval to reach the mature weight.

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The present experiments were undertaken to elucidate whether the sperm agglutinating antibodies in the serum of hens increase following the successive artificial inseminations, and if the agglutinins affect the fertility of the hens.
1. Following the successive inseminations, the number of the hens which possessed sperm agglutinins and the titer of agglutinins increased. However, some hens already possessed the agglutinins before the inseminations, and the titer was found to increase with age. These facts suggested that the increases were not exclusively attributable to the successive inseminations.
2. The following regressive formulas and correlation coefficients existed between the sperm agglutinin titer (X) in the serum and the fertility of eggs of the hen (Y) in two poultry farms.
Y=-4.89x+77.22, r=-0.27 (n=32, at Y Farm)
Y=-2.55x+67.16, r=-0.30 (n=80, at K Farm)
The coefficients of correlation were statistically significant at 5% level, but not so high that it was difficult to determine that the cause of low fertility after successive inseminations in the practical field was due to the increase of sperm agglutinins.

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