The Metabolizable and Productive Energy of Carobs for the Growing Chick

THE pods of the carob tree (Ceraionia siliqua), popularly known as “St. John’s bread,” are fed to livestock and consumed by people in most Mediterranean countries. Recently they have been used outside this region in milk replacers for young calves (Robinson, 1960) and as an antidiarrhetic for babies (Pretorius and Venter, 1959). On the other hand, reports have appeared on their low nutritive value for various species (see discussion). The literature on the use of carobs for chickens has been reviewed in a previous paper (Bornstein et al., 1963), which contains also the composition of carob pods and seeds. In the latter paper it was postulated that the growth retardation accompanying feeding of diets containing 20–30% carob meal was due both to its low content of digestible nutrients, and to the presence of a hot-water-extractable appetite-depressing factor (possibly a tannin-like compound) which prevented a compensatory increase in feed consumption.…