Moisture production of growing turkey poults

Abstract

Increased confinement housing of turkeys has created a need for data on the moisture production of turkeys. Sufficient data do not exist in the literature.

Some research has been conducted at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Turkey Research Center, but the past facilities dealt only with full grown turkeys. Some modifications of these facilities were necessary in order to adapt them to growing turkey poults. These modifications were made and the moisture production of one group of medium white female turkey poults was determined during the grow-out period. The environmental temperature was kept constant at 70°F ± 1°F; relative humidity ranged from 42.8 percent to 64.8 percent.

A brief summary of the results obtained from the moisture production study are as follows:

1. The rate of fecal moisture production per pound of bird declined with age during the grow-out period. A logarithmic function was found to best describe this relationship.

2. The rate of fecal moisture production per bird increased with weight during the grow-out period; an equation was found which satisfactorily described this.

3. The rate of respired moisture production per pound of bird decreased linearly with age.

4. The rate of respired moisture production per bird increased with weight during the grow-out period. A second degree polynomial best described this relationship.

5. A moisture input and output balance was used to help check accuracy. Input measurements were consistently greater than the output; this range was from 3.3 percent to 21.4 percent.