On the Arginine Requirement of the Growing Chick

USING a semi-purified diet and 4-week-old chicks, Almquist and Merritt (1950) found the arginine requirement of the chick for optimum growth to be 6 percent of the dietary protein, or 1.2 percent of a diet containing 20 percent protein. Using day-old chicks and a purified diet, Snyder et al. (1954) found that arginine supplementation increased chick growth steadily up to a level of 1.68 percent arginine of the total diet. Wietlake et al. (1954) also found the arginine requirement to be higher than the level given by Almquist. Similarly, the work of Young et al. (1953) can be interpreted to mean, that, using day-old chicks, optimum growth with a purified diet containing 25 percent casein is reached only when approximately 1.7 percent arginine is supplied. Using acid-hydrolyzed casein3 as the only source of protein, Fisher (1954) found that a level of 6 percent arginine of the total protein would limit …