The Influence of Animal Protein Factor Supplements and Antibiotics on the Incidence and Severity of White Feathers in Turkeys

Abstract

Fritz et al. ('46) showed that lysine was necessary for Ihn prevention of a white bar condition in the flight feathers of bronze poults. Grau et al. ( '46) found a lysine requirement for poults of 1.3%, while German et al. ('49) obtained normal feather pigmentation with 1.2% lysine in the diet. Slinger et al. ('49) and Gartley et al. ('50) found that sunflower seed oil meal was seriously deficient in lysine for the poult when used to supply most of the supplementary protein in either a 24 or 28% protein diet. The results of the latter workers sug gested a higher dietary lysine requirement for normal feather pigmentation than for optimum growth in poults. Several workers have reported that certain animal protein factor (APF) supplements cause a marked increase in the growth of poults (McGinniset al., '49; Singsen and Matterson, '49; Slinger, '50; and others). Stokstad and Jukes ('50) have shown that aureomycin, at low levels, causes growth stimula tion in poults, while McGinnis ('50) has reported that peni cillin, aureomycin, terramycin and streptomycin produce a substantial growth increase in this species. Newly hatched broad breasted bronze poults were used in all of the tests to be reported. The birds were vent-sexed and 345