The Effect of Oral and Parenteral Administration of Antibiotics on Growth and Fecal Microflora in the Turkey Poult

STOKSTAD and Jukes (1950) and Whitehill et al. (1950) reported several antibiotics to increse the growth rate of chicks adequately suppled with vitamin B12. Atkinson and Couch (1951) obtained a 25% increase in both feed efficiency and growth with the addition of aureomycin to the diet of turkey poults. Elam, Gee and Couch (1951a) reported that the fecal microflora of the growing chick was influenced by the feeding of penicillin. These same workers (1951b) reported later that antibiotics may stimulate growth by some mechanism in addition to the action on the aerobic microflora. Elam et al. (1953) reported that the administration of antibiotics had significantly decreased the number of Clostridia in chick fecal material. Smith and Robinson (1945) found that sterptomycin administered orally produced a marked reduction in the coliform bacteria in the intestine of mice. Rosenberg et al. (1952) found that the addition of terramycin to the diet of …