A method for the estimation of uric acid in poultry excreta

Abstract

In connection with nutritional investigations on poultry being carried out in the above Institute by the writer's colleague, Mr E. T. Halnan, it became necessary to devise a satisfactory method for the estimation of uric acid in poultry excreta. Although numerous exact methods have been elaborated for the determination of the amount of uric acid in mammalian urine, the corresponding problem in connection with the excreta of birds has received relatively little attention. This circumstance is no doubt due in large measure to the peculiar difficulty attaching to the quantitative investigation of the nitrogenous constituents of poultry excreta, arising from the fact that the urine and faeces are not excreted separately. The urine is not temporarily stored in a bladder, as with mammals, but proceeds directly from the kidneys through the ureters to the cloaca and there undergoes admixture with the faeces from the intestines.