The Rearing of Chickens on the Intensive System. Part IV. C-Vitamin Requirements of Chickens and other Birds

Abstract

THE growth of the chick in the shell to the day of hatching is one of the best indications that C-vitamin is not needed by the growing bird, since there is no evidence to show that the contents of eggs have any anti-scorbutic value. Further, in those species of animals which suffer from scurvy, the young are most quickly affected. These considerations suggested to us that birds would not require C-vitamin at any time during their lives. The earlier workers upon beri-beri maintained chickens for many weeks upon a diet free from C-vitamin. More recently, Shorten and Ray [1921] kept fowls for 13 weeks on a diet of dried vegetables, proved by experiments on guinea-pigs to be free from C-vitamin, but their birds died from some unknown causes. Sugiura and Benedict [1923] have kept pigeons on a diet without C-vitamin for 147 days. They consider also that A-vitamin is not required by pigeons (or at most only a very small amount). The birds produced eggs and raised their young on the same diet. Chickens have been kept by These observers, and also Emmett and Peacock [1923], find that A-vitamin is needed in considerable amount by chickens.