The Effects on Average Daily Gain When Adding Corn to a Turkey Grower Ration

Poultry enthusiasts commonly add cracked corn to their flocks’ diet to reduce cost, while unknowingly reducing the nutritional value of a total mixed ration or complete feed. As corn contains mostly energy and minimal protein little is known about how this substitution affects the weight gain of the bird. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of cracked corn in a grower turkey diet on average weekly gain and daily feed intake. , 5-8 d of age, poults were fed 24% protein chick starter pellets for six weeks. The poults were randomly split into two assigned test groups (n=6) and were fed straight 30% protein grower feed pellets or a 4:1 mixture of grower feed pellets to cracked corn. The 4:1 ratio was used to ensure the energy concentration for both test groups were For six weeks, feed consumption was measured daily and all birds were weighed once a week. The average weekly gain for both treatment groups were as follows. The initial corn treatment group (C) was 2.29 kg and the pellet treatment group (P) was 2.10 kg. For six weeks, the following averages were recorded, week 1 (C) 3.17 kg, (P) 2.96 kg, week 2 (C) 3.93 kg, (P) 4.19 kg, week 3 (C) 4.91 kg, (P) 5.26 kg, week 4 (C) 5.91 kg, (P) 6.02 kg, week 5 (C) 6.61 kg (P) 6.73 kg, week 6 (C) 7.61 kg, (P) 7.72 kg. It was observed that average weekly gain between treatments was not statistically different (P < 0.05). We can conclude that adding corn in this ratio did not affect the weight of the birds. This experiment demonstrates that adding corn to a diet will not detract from the weekly weight gain of the bird and could be used as a filler to make feed last longer.