Antibiotics, Methionine and Unidentified Growth Factors in the Nutrition of Broadbreasted Bronze Turkey Poults

Abstract

From the results of this study it is apparent that bacitracin and penicillin will increase growth and improve feed efficiency when added to an all-vegetable protein diet for turkey poults. It is indicated that antibiotics do not always induce a growth response under such conditions. DL-methionine produced an increase in growth and an improvement in feed efficiency when 0.05% was added to the basal diet. This response was shown to be additive with that due to the unidentified factor content of distillers' dried solubles, and was further increased by the addition of an antibiotic to such a ration. Distillers' dried solubles contain an unidentified poult growth factor. The content of such factor in this product varied in different samples obtained from the same manufacturer. No explanation of such variance is apparent from the data presented.