Perosis in Turkey Poults and the Choline Content of Their Diets

PEROSIS in turkey poults has been demonstrated to be due to a deficiency of either manganese (Ringrose, Martin, and Insko, 1939; Evans et al., 1942) or choline (Jukes, 1940a). Jukes (1940a) first prevented perosis in turkey poults by adding 0.3 percent of choline to the diets. Later Jukes found that, with the diet used by him, 0.1 percent of added choline was sufficient for growth, but was insufficient for the prevention of perosis (Jukes, 1940b). Addition of 0.2 percent of choline to the basal diet protected against perosis. Although a small amount of perosis is quite common in commercial flocks, highly artificial diets have been necessary to produce choline and manganese deficiencies so that they can be studied experimentally. The diet used by Jukes (1940a) to demonstrate the perosis-preventing properties of choline, and by us (Evans et al., 1942) to study various supplements, was very artificial. With information on the . . .