Effect of Penicillin on the Growth and Feed Consumption of Turkey Poults

SCOTT and Glista (1950) found that the inclusion of aureomycin in a chick diet gave a slight but insignificant growth response with ad libitum feeding and no growth response when feed intake was equated. Brown et al. (1953), working with pigs, observed a marked growth response to aureomycin on an unlimited feeding regime but no significant difference when the pigs were given an equalized feed intake. Previous work in this laboratory (Slinger et al., 1953a) showed that penicillin caused a significant increase in weight with chicks having free access to feed but no increase when feed intake was restricted. In this work it was also observed that, with chicks fed ad libitum, penicillin resulted in greater daily feed consumption per chick almost without exception for the first 28 days after hatching. On the other hand, feed consumption per unit of body weight was increased by the antibiotic only to about …