Induced exudative diathesis in chicks by dietary silver

Two experiments were conducted with chicks to compare the effectiveness of vitamin E,selenium and cystine in preventing the deleterious effects of dietary silver. Adding 900 p.p.m. silver to a diet marginal in vitamin E and selenium significantly depressed growth and caused a high mortality during the four-week experiment. Most of the mortality was due to exduative diathesis. Including either 1 p.p.m. selenium or 100 I.U. vitamin E per kg. in the diets with silver prevented the growth depression and mortality. Adding 0.15% cystine stimulated growth, but failed to rpevent mortality. In a second experiment, chicks were grown on the diet containing silver with and without cystine to 15 days of age, at which time approximately 50% of the chicks exhibited signs of exudative diathesis. At that time they were either continued on the same diet of fed diets supplemented with selenium or vitamin E. Both vitamin E and selenium reduced mortality during the following two-week period, but vitamin E. was more effective than selenium.