A Comparison of Opaque-2 and Normal Corn in a Finishing Ration for Turkeys

THE opaque-2 mutant gene markedly alters the amino acid composition of corn protein, particularly in respect to the two most limiting amino acids, lysine and tryptophan, which are greatly increased in the presence of the opaque-2 gene (Mertz et al., 1964; Nelson et al., 1965). That this alteration in amino acid composition of corn protein results in improved nutritional value has been demonstrated in the rat (Mertz et al., 1965; Gipp et al., 1967, 1968), pig (Cromwell et al., 1967a, 1969; Klein et al., 1967) and chick (Cromwell et al., 1967b, 1968; Fonseca et al., 1969). The work reported herein was designed to compare the nutritive value of opaque-2 corn protein with normal corn protein in a finishing diet for turkeys. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Four hundred and eighty male turkeys were randomly distributed into 24 pens at 16 weeks of age. The pens were located in 2 houses with 6 pens…