Mortality in Poultry Flocks and the Vitamin A Content of the Livers of Pullets and Hens

IN VIEW of the postulated relationship between the intake of vitamin A and susceptibility to disease, it was considered possible that a low intake of this factor might be partly responsible for the high mortality experienced with laying flocks. If such were the case, the vitamin A content of the liver might be expected to be low or absent. To test this hypothesis, determinations were made, by means of the antimony trichloride reaction, of the liver vitamin A of a group of birds submitted for autopsy to the Poultry Pathology Laboratory of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the values obtained compared with those of a group from a laying flock considered to be normal at the time of killing. Even if no definite deficiency were demonstrated, it was thought that a relation between liver vitamin A and certain diseases might be disclosed. Such a study on the livers . . .