Weight changes in chickens placed on different levels of nutrition and varying degrees of repeated dosage with Ascaridia galli eggs

Abstract

SUMMARYThe effect of continuing ingestion of eggs of A. galli on growth rates of chickens placed on different nutritional levels was studied under repeated doses of 10, 100 and 1000 infective eggs/day. With increasing amounts of protein in feed, there occurred significant weight differences between infected groups, the highest protein levels showing the longest duration in weight depression due to infection. On the other hand, assuming adequate nutrition of host, highest effects on growth rates were seen in chickens receiving daily doses of 1000 eggs daily and the lowest in chickens receiving 10 eggs daily.The effect of repeated dose on growth rate is similar to the effect of single infections reported by previous workers except that the duration of the growth depression was much longer in the former due to pathogenic effects of inhibited larvae.The author is indebted to the Department of Technical Cooperation, under whose Fellowship this study was carried out; to the Department of Zoology, Edinburgh University, where the work was done; to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; Poultry Research Laboratories, Lasswade, for the free supply of chickens used here; and finally to Dr J. A. Campbell of Edinburgh University for his keen interest and advice throughout this work.