The Influence of Age of Chicks on Their Sensitivity to Raw Soybean Oil Meal

THE extensive literature on the importance of properly processing soybean oil meals intended for chicks has been reviewed in detail by Liener (1958) and Cravens and Sipos (1958). In most of those studies the experimental diets were fed for several weeks beginning with a very young age. As far as these authors are aware no investigations have been published on the effect of raw soybean meal on older chicks; only some rather incidental observations have been reported. Fisher et al. (1957) stated that the insensitivity of pullets to the growth inhibitors of raw soybean meal does not assert itself until after 14 weeks of age. Nijveld (1958) noticed that at an older age chicks seemed to suffer less from under-processed soybean oil meal than when they were very young, but that at 6 weeks of age they still were unfavorably affected (Nijveld, 1959), and according to Bornstein et al. (1961) …