The Effect of Dietary Fat and Cellulose on Apparent Calcium Digestibility in Growing Chickens

THE reports of Morris et al. (1932), Sheehy (1939), Fuller et al. (1940), Heuser et al. (1945), Carrick and Roberts (1947) and Insko and Culton (1949) generally agree that dietary fiber above the 10% level depresses the growth of chickens. On the other hand Wilcke and Hammond (1940) and Davis and Briggs (1947, 1948) reported improved gains when cellulose was added to nutritionally adequate, fiber-free, purified chick diets. Further studies by Panda and Combs (1950), Hill and Dansky (1954), and Fisher and Weiss (1956) indicated that crude fiber level did not affect growth except as it affected the productive energy content of the ration; i.e., efficiency of utilization was not sacrificed when fiber was added, simultaneously with fat, to highenergy diets. The interrelationship between fat and fiber reported by Richardson et al. (1956, 1958) is a possible explanation for the disagreement of earlier observations as well as the effect observed…