232 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



58 per cent of the protein of clover is digested 



76 per cent of the protein of corn is digested 



77 per cent of the protein of oats is digested 



89 per cent of the protein of linseed meal is digested 



So do the carbohydrates and fat vary in digestibility in 

 different foods. 



The percentages of these nutrients digested by animals 

 have been determined for practically all animal foods, and 

 tables of digestion coefficients for livestock have been made 

 and published. Unfortunately, the same information is 

 not available for poultry feeds. It has been assumed that 

 the digestibility of feeds will not be the same with poultry 

 as with livestock; that poultry may or may not digest the 

 food better than livestock ; and that before the digestibility 

 of poultry foods may be known digestion experiments must 

 be made with poultry. Some work has already been done 

 with fowls, but hardly enough to definitely establish feed- 

 ing standards. So far the results indicate that the digesti- 

 bility of certain foods does not vary much whether fed to 

 fowls or to farm animals. 



In the above table the figures for lives cock were used in 

 computing the nutritive ratio. 



Digestion Coefficients. This is the term used in speak- 

 ing of the percentage of foods that is digestible. The 

 digestion experiments that have been made with poultry 

 haVe been mainly those by Bartlett of the Maine Station 

 (Bulletin 184), Brown of the Bureau of Animal Industry 

 (Bulletin 156), and Fields and Ford of the Oklahoma 

 Station (Bulletin 46). A table of the digestion coefficients, 

 giving the average results of all these analyses, has been 

 compiled by Bartlett and published in the Maine Station 

 bulletin 184. This includes the results of work of several 

 European investigators. 



