Growth and digestive function of turkeys surviving the poult enteritis and mortality syndrome

Stunted growth of poults afflicted by enteritis mortality syndrome (PEMS) may be associated with depressed digestive capabilities. We conducted two experiments to test this hypothesis. Survivors of PEMS were obtained from a research flock that had been purposefully infected at 5 d of age with PEMS inoculum that included turkey corona virus. The PEMS survivors were assigned to Experiments 1 and 2, beginning at 40 and 35 d of age, respectively. Three groups (large, L; medium, M; and small, S) and two groups (L and S) of 20 poults each were selected to represent different degrees of stunting in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. When the body weights of each group in both experiments were plotted using initial body weight as the starting point, all of the weights fell on the normal growth curve except Group S in Experiment 1. Therefore, there was no evidence of compensatory growth over the period studied. In Experiment 1, apparent fat absorption (AFA) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) for control (85.9%) than for M (78.5%) and S (78.3%) groups, and AME, for the control group was significantly higher than all the PEMS-survivor groups. In Experiment 2, Group L had a higher AFA and AMEn than Group S. AFA and AMEn improved in both groups over time. The digestive capabilities of PEMS survivors were depressed proportionally to the degree of stunting. Impaired fat digestibility and dietary energy utilization in PEMS-afflicted birds are likely contributors to stunted growth and reduced recovery rates.