Studies on Zinc in Poultry Nutrition

STUDIES on zinc in the nutrition of the chick by Edwards, Young and Gillis (1958) have shown that the chick can obtain small quantities of zinc from feed and water and zinc-galvanized materials. Zinc may be obtained from the latter either by direct contact or by contamination of the feed and water from these materials. This paper is a report on the study of the chicks’ requirement for zinc under carefully controlled experimental conditions where special precautions were taken to isolate the chicks from any environmental zinc. Although O’Dell and Savage (1957) and Edwards et al. (1958) have described the general symptoms of a zinc deficiency in chicks, the severe zinc deficiency symptoms encountered in this study are described in detail and illustrated. EXPERIMENTAL Single Comb White Leghorn cockerels were used in all experiments. In five experiments, the chicks were housed in plastic cages with stainless steel tops. Five chicks . . .