Preface

The author's first involvement with the poultry industry involved setting up a small laboratory for the routine testing of blood samples from broiler parent chickens. The major diseases of concern to the company in question at that time were Chronic Respiratory Disease caused by Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Newcastle Disease. This dissertation aims to document the principles underlying the use of serological techniques in poultry production. It is hoped that the general information contained in sections 1 and 2 will be of interest to those involved in poultry production using any of the domesticated species. Section 3 uses extensive data generated by testing blood samples from commercial chickens to illustrate these principles.