Date of Graduation
2003
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
Committee Chair
Ronald A. Peterson
Abstract
An experiment was conducted involving 360 large white turkeys of mixed sex, raised in floor pens. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the effect of dietary lactose on the performance of turkeys and to determine the optimum amount of lactose inclusion in the diet. There were six diets and three replicates of each diet. The diets contained 0%, (commercial and control) 0.5%, 1%, 2% and 4% lactose and were randomly assigned to 18 pens with 20 birds per pen. Feed and water were offered ad libitum. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) among the diets in final body weight, weight gain, feed efficiency and feed intake, except for the commercial diet, which showed a significantly poorer performance. The results also showed a quadratic relationship between the amount of lactose in the diet and both the final body weight and weight gain (p< 0.05).
Recommended Citation
Milimu, Mabel Mbone, "The effect of dietary lactose on the performance of turkeys." (2003). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD). 10771.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/10771