The Effect of Dicumarol, Diphacinone and Pivalyl Upon Blood Prothrombin Time of Chicks

INCREASED prothrombin time due to feeding dicumarol has been observed with the chick (Quick and Stefanini, 1948; Harms and Tarver, 1957) and laying hens (Waldroup and Harms, 1962; Day et al., 1964). The action of dicumarol in the inhibition of the blood clotting process is lessened by the presence of vitamin K in the diet according to Quick and Stefanini (1948). Although sulfaquinoxaline is used to induce hypoprothrombinemia in chick assays of vitamin K compounds (Perdue and Frost, 1961; Griminger and Daves, 1959), the use of other anticoagulants may prove of value in studies on vitamin K activity or the mechanism of blood clotting as related to the occurrence of blood spots in eggs. The experiments reported herein were designed to evaluate the effects of three anticoagulants on the prothrombin time of chicks. Four experiments were conducted using broiler strain chicks obtained from a commercial hatchery. All chicks were …