The effect of low protein feeding and realimentation on skeletal growth and proportions in two strains of male turkey.

Abstract

Synopsis Two experiments were conducted to study the effect of feeding a low protein diet in early life and subsequent realimentation on skeletal growth and proportions in turkeys. In the first experiment male poults of a “small” strain were fed isocaloric diets containing either 27.0% followed by 25.0% or 19.8% followed by 16.6% crude protein from o to 6 and 6 to 11 weeks of age respectively. At 11 weeks of age regressions of length of lower‐leg and mid‐wing on body weight for the two treatments indicated that normal skeletal proportions were not disturbed by the 11‐week period of moderate undernutrition. Percentage depressions in length of lower‐leg and mid‐wing, due to undernutrition, were 5.3 and 2.5% respectively. These were of a similar order of magnitude as the corresponding depression in the one‐third power of body weight, 3.4%, rather than that of simple body weight, 9.9%. Nutrition did not materially affect individual variation in body weight at n weeks of age, but coefficients of variation for ...