Abstract
1. Diagnosis for degenerative, myopathy of the Musculus supracora‐coideus (DMS) in the live bird was attempted from plasma creatine kinase (CK) [EC 2.7. 3.2] activities in 70 female turkeys. The blood of each bird was sampled 18 to 20 times over an age span of 16 to 79 weeks.
2. DMS incidence was 15.7%.
3. After CK values were logarithmically transformed and corrected for bleeding date, 82% of the affected birds had one CK value that deviated 3 or more standard deviations from the mean of other values for the same bird. The results indicate that plasma CK activities can be used to identify affected birds with a high degree of reliability.
Notes
Contribution No. 853 from the Animal Research Institute and No. 1–108 from the Statistical Research Section, Engineering and Statistical Research Institute.