Effect of High Fat and Iron Levels on the Growth and Mortality of Chickens

Abstract

Four experiments were conducted with chicks to determine whether the heating of vegetable oil and its contamination with iron might have detrimental effects upon its use in chicken diets. Soybean oil and safflower oil heated at 230 C for 51 hr and linseed oil heated at 240 C for 24 hr gave reduced growth when fed to chickens at 20 percent of the diet. Heating soybean oil at 175 C for 51 hr had no detrimental effect. However, iron at 5000 ppm depressed growth significantly when fed in a low fat diet. The depression was greatly reduced when soybean oil was fed at 10 or 20% of the diet. A different lot of soybean oil was found to cause skin dermatitis and high mortality when fed at 20% of the diet due to its physical contamination on the skin.