Feather Meal in Chick Nutrition

THE vast extension of the broiler industry in recent years has resulted in an annual production of 60,000 tons or more of feathers. A large percentage of these feathers has been used for fertilizing purposes. As feathers contain 82 percent protein they have been considered a possible source of protein for poultry feeds. A director’s report by the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station (1926) showed that hydrolyzed feathers improved egg production in one year but not in the second year. The researchers concluded that the expense of hydrolyzing chicken feathers was too great to warrant further nutritional studies of feathers in commercial poultry feeds. Draper (1944) reported favorable results of sodium sulfide-treated feathers in a basal cereal diet with chicks and rats. Feather protein was found by Routh (1942) to be deficient in tryptophane, methionine, lysine and histidine. Wilder (1953) reported that a combination of 3 percent feather meal, 3 percent …