Salt Tolerance of Turkeys

Scrivner (1946) has suggested that edema and ascites as observed in turkey poults may be caused by sodium chloride, or more specifically, by the sodium in the diet. He based his conclusions on results of experiments in which day-old poults were fed a commercial mash containing 0.5% sodium chloride to which he added up to 3.0% sodium chloride and in another series, various percentages of other sodium salts. His data indicated that 2.5% sodium chloride was detrimental. More recently James (1946) supplemented a basal diet with 0.25%, 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0% sodium chloride. He did not state whether or not his basal diet contained sodium chloride per se. He concluded that sodium chloride up to 1.0% in the diet was not detrimental to growth or the cause of high mortality. Batchelder (1946) reported on observations made on turkey poults submitted to the Poultry Diagnostic Laboratory of the Rhode Island Agricultural . . .