Stunting syndrome in turkeys. Development of an experimental model.

Experiments were conducted to establish a stunting syndrome (SS) model to facilitate research on nutritional aspects of enteric disorders of poults. One-day-old turkeys were dosed per os with tryptose phosphate broth (TPB) (controls) or inoculum (inoculated). The inoculum was prepared by homogenizing intestines from 11-day-old commercial poults diagnosed to have SS in TPB (1:0.5 [wt:wt]). Subsequently, intestines from 8-day-old inoculated poults from the previous experiment were used. Inoculation reduced growth (P less than 0.001) and feed consumption (P less than 0.001) at 8 and 14 days of age. In Expts. 1, 2, and 3, gain of inoculated poults was 60.9%, 58.8%, and 52.6% that of controls up to 8 days of age and 77.9%, 76.6%, and 80.9% that of controls from 8 to 15 days of age, respectively. Feed conversion was impaired (P less than 0.001) up to 8 days of age. The activity of maltase and sucrase in the jejunum and of pancreatic enzymes was determined every 2 days up to 13 days of age. Inoculation decreased (P less than 0.001) maltase and sucrase starting at 3 days of age (i.e., maltase activity was 17.45 and 1.70 mumols maltose hydrolyzed/hr.mg protein in control and inoculated poults, respectively). Inoculation had no effect on pancreatic lipase, amylase, or trypsin.