Variant Oocyte Membrane Proteins and Breeder SubFertility

The continuous improvement of quality of animal products and the animals themselves is one of the responsibilities we share as geneticists. As increases in human populations increase worldwide, the pressure to increase production of foodstuffs becomes more and more intense. Most notably, we have focused a tremendous effort at improving production of domestic animals. Among the meat-animal species, improvement of body weight, growth rate, muscle yield and feed conversion have received the major effort. Unfortunately, improvement in production has come at the cost of the reproductive fitness of the animals themselves. Among meat-type chickens, egg production of primary breeder hens rarely exceeds 175 hatching eggs per hen pedigreed selection lines fare much worse. Further, it was common in the 1960's to house 1 rooster per 15 hens to ensure maximal fertility of a flock. Currently, roosters are housed at a 1:10 ratio and often need to be replaced by younger males as their mating effectiveness declines with age.