Previous studies have shown that addition of fructose to the diet of broilers raises plasma uric acid (PUA) concentration and improves productive performance. The purpose of this experiment was to establish the effect of feeding fructose on turkey PUA concentration and productive performance. Turkey poults (n = 64) were weighed and randomly assigned to diets containing 0 (control), 5, 10, and 1...

Poults with early access to feed in the hatchery or turkey house grew more than those reared under standard commercial practice. During 48 h posthatch, fed poults utilized yolk and exogenous feed to increase BW by 11 g. The small intestine increased from 3.8% of BW at hatch to 8.9% after 48 h. In contrast, BW in feed-deprived poults decreased by 10 g, whereas the small intestine increased sligh...

A study was conducted to determine the efficacy of phytase, an enzymic cocktail, and a waste Aspergillus niger mycelium to hydrolyze phytate present in corn-soybean meal diets. One hundred turkey poults were assigned to dietary treatments for 2 wk (days 7 to 21). Dietary treatments included: 1) NRC (1994) diet (NRC), with recommended concentration of 0.6% available P (aP) and 1.2% Ca; 2) Phytas...

Two experiments were conducted to determine intestinal disaccharidase activity in 1-day-old commercial turkey poults inoculated with astrovirus. Small intestinal samples were collected on days 0.5, 1, 3, and 7 postinoculation (PI) in Expt. 1 and on days 7, 10, and 14 PI in Expt. 2 and evaluated for specific maltase activity (SMA). Astrovirus infection was verified on day 7 PI by immune electron...

Levels of cardiac glycogen were determined by biochemical assays in turkey poults from an experimental flock with a known high incidence of round heart disease. Levels of cardiac glycogen were significantly higher (p < .05) than in commercial turkeys, but not significantly different in the turkeys that developed spontaneous round heart disease. The high level of cardiac glycogen in the poults o...

Incidence of round heart disease was prevalent in starting turkey poults in studies at our experimental facility. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate two dietary factors that may have contributed to increased susceptibility of poults to round heart disease. Experiment 1 consisted of 4 dietary treatments in which dietary chlorine ranged from 0.17 to 0.29% as a result of salt addition, but...

The effects of dietary supplementation of the direct-fed microbial (DFM) Primalac in mash or crumbled feed on histological and ultrastructural changes of intestinal mucosa was determined in 2 populations of poults; 1 with and 1 without a Salmonella spp. challenge. Three hundred thirty-six 1-d-old female Large White turkey poults were randomly distributed into 8 treatment groups with 6 replicate...

Embryo and hatchling survival diminish as turkey breeder hens age. Recent data indicated that a chelated calcium proteinate (CCP) additive given to turkey breeder hens improved embryo survival as hens aged but did not affect shell thickness. We hypothesized that the mechanism by which this occurred may be by improved functional shell quality and its consequent effect on cardiac physiology. To t...