Effect of Different Sources of Protein on Reproduction in the Hen

STUDIES on specific nutrients necessitate the use of specially formulated diets. This often presents a problem for the nutritionist in that some diets may lack palatability, bulk, or even a nutritional factors(s) not under investigation. Several different purified diets have been used in our studies on the metabolism of fats and fatty acids in poultry. Since the protein and fiber component of these diets were extracted exhaustively with methanol to remove lipid material, the low-fat diets were of a dry, powdery consistency and possibly of poor palatability. Hens given these diets supplemented with linoleic acid-containing oils responded with significantly increased reproductive performance. The responses, however, were not of the same magnitude as those observed with hens receiving a corn-soy diet containing oil. This posed the question as to whether the low-fat purified diet was deficient only in linoleic acid, or was the deficiency of a multiple nature. Miller et al. . . .