Water Consumption in Growing Turkeys

Many feed consumption records for growing turkeys have been published but none has been found showing the amount of water they consume. During the years 1944 to 1947 the writer conducted experiments wherein water consumption records were kept on four groups of turkeys throughout the entire 26-week growing period and for the first 13 weeks in one additional group. The data reported in this paper was obtained from control groups of broad-breasted bronze turkeys which were used in certain growth experiments. These turkeys, purchased as day-old poults from commercial hatcheries, were housed in pens approximately 10½′×16′ located in 20′×42′ poultry houses. Since no sun porches were available, the turkeys were raised in complete confinement. Experiment 1 was started on July 1, experiments 2 and 3 on April 13 and experiments 4 and 5 on April 17. Commercial turkey feeds were used in experiments 1, 2 and 3. In experiments 4 . . .