Experimental errors in laying experiments

Abstract

To amplify published information on the size of errors in annual egg records, results are presented for fourteen laying experiments and one flock under uniform management at the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland, Hillsborough. It is concluded that in laying experiments on a semi-intensive plant the egg records are seldom affected to any serious extent by differences between pens that are treated similarly. Non-random allocation of pullets to the laying pens does not appear to have seriously affected the results on which this conclusion is based. It is pointed out that the distribution of egg records from a high producing flock is likely to be extremely skew and leptokurtic.