Zinc Bacitracin and Added Fat in Diets of Growing Turkeys

Diets varying in bacitracin from zinc bacitracin and in animal and vegetable fat were fed to female and male Large White turkeys from hatching to 20 and to 24 weeks of age, respectively. By adding bacitracin to the diets, body weights were significantly improved in excess of 3% throughout the experiment. At 20 weeks of age, average body weights of all turkeys fed diets containing 0, 16.5, 33.0, 49.5 and 66.0 p.p.m. bacitracin were 9.23, 9.48, 9.38, 9.77 and 9.58 kg., respectively. Added fat significantly depressed body weight gains to 6 or 8 weeks, but significantly increased body weight gains after 10 weeks of age. By feeding diets containing 0, 5 and 10% added fat, body weights and feed efficiencies of 24-week old males were 13.30, 14.14 and 14.45 kg., and .273, .313 and .342, respectively. For the 20-week old females, the values were 7.68, 7.67 and 7.73 kg. and .285, .318 and .347, respectively.