The Effects of Environmental Temperature on the Protein Requirements and Response to Energy in Slow and Fast Growing Chicks ,

THE protein requirement of the chick has received extensive investigation. Heuser (1941) reported that the diet should contain 20 percent protein during the first 4 weeks of life and that the protein level could be reduced by 2 percent for each succeeding 4 week period until a minimal level of 15 percent is reached. Slinger et al. (1952) obtained a growth response to 10 weeks of age with each increasing increment of protein from 17 to 26 percent. Several workers (Heywang et al., 1953; Shutze et al., 1958; Leong et al., 1959; Douglas and Harms, 1960) have reported the protein requirement of chicks under 10 weeks of age to be in excess of 20 percent. Adams et al. (1962) found the protein requirement for optimal growth of chicks from 4 to 8 weeks of age, maintained in environmental temperatures of 21°C. and 29°C, to be approximately 17 percent in both . . .