The effects of debeaking, floor space, and diet energy levels on broiler growth.

Abstract BIELY and March (1954) and Donaldson et al. (1956) presented evidence indicating that increasing the energy in 24 and 28 percent rations had no effect on growth but did improve feed efficiency. Sunde (1956) observed no effect on growth when the energy level was increased in a 20 percent protein ration. Turk et al. (1961) reported that a protein level of 20 to 21 percent with a productive energy level of about 900 Calories per pound gave optimum growth and feed efficiency. Matterson et al. (1955) found that growth rate increased as the productive energy increased at any given protein level from 20 to 28 percent. When the floor space was reduced from one square foot to one-half square foot per bird, (Tomhave and Seegar, 1945; Mehrhof and O’Steen, 1948; Moreng et al., 1961; and Hansen and Becker, 1959) growth was reduced. Siegel and Coles (1958) compared 0.5, 0.75, 1.0,…