Sodium Requirement of the Young Chick Fed Purified Diets

THE earliest quantitative estimate of the sodium requirement of the young growing chick was reported by Sjollema (1935) who concluded that a level of 0.4 to 0.5% sodium was required for the first month of life. Other early determinations of the chicks’ requirement for sodium were expressed as the salt (sodium chloride) requirement. Several investigators (Halpin et al., 1936; Barlow et al., 1948; Bearse and Berg, 1946; and Slinger et al., 1950) have reported supplemental sodium chloride values ranging from 0.25 to 2.0%, depending on the diet employed, to be required for optimum chick growth. Heuser (1952) using a diet containing 0.41% salt concluded that no significant growth response could be obtained above the 0.25% addition of salt. With a semipurified basal diet containing only 0.019% sodium, Burns et al. (1953) found the requirement for sodium to reside between 0.10 and 0.30% of the diet; the higher level being required…