Visceral urate deposits in chicks inoculated with avian nephritis virus.

Avian nephritis virus, G-4260 strain, was inoculated orally into one-day-old specific-pathogen-free chicks of two lines. Approximately 20 per cent of the chicks of both lines died with visceral urate deposits from eight to 12 days after infection, and the virus was isolated from the kidneys of the dead chicks. At 14 or 15 days of age the mean liveweight of the surviving infected chicks was approximately 16 per cent less than that of the uninfected control chicks.