“Disease resistance influenced by egg colour”

In his search on the workings of broad-acting, natural antibodies from white laying hens, Ph.D. candidate Tom Berghof came across a surprising genetic link between the mother hen’s eggshell colour and the natural antibody levels of the descendants. His conclusion: eggshell colour indicates how much natural antibodies the chicks will have. Tom Berghof is a PhD candidate at Adaptation Physiology Group and Animal Breeding at the Genomics Centre at Wageningen University, Department of Animal Scie