A practical evaluation of five food additives likely to be used as growth promoters in broiler rations

Synopsis

An investigation is described which was designed to evaluate and compare five food additives. The investigation was carried out with about 2400 broilers and the food additives tested were virginiamycin, zinc bacitracin, a nitrofuran derivative, and two arsenical compounds. Only one treatment, one of the arsenicals, produced results economically superior to the control diet. This evaluation of the treatments relative to each other and to the control diet remained substantially similar, as far as the several production characters were concerned, in each of the two seasons in which the investigation was carried out, for each sex and for each of the two breeds of broiler used. The total weight and the weight per unit area of the wall of the small intestine was found to be higher among birds on the control diet than under each of the treatment diets.