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Poultry Nutrition: A Comparative Approach

Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616

Correspondence: K. C. Klasing, E-mail: kcklasing{at}ucdavis.edu

Although a variety of scholarly papers and books classify chickens and turkeys as granivores, they are omnivores and do not have the food preferences, digestive anatomy, or nutritional strategies that would classify them as granivores. Their wild relatives consume a very wide variety of food items of both plant and animal origin, and seeds are not often a primary component. Intake of insects by jungle fowl chicks and wild turkey poults exceeds 50% of their diet, and adult females increase their intake of insects at the time of reproduction. In the case of jungle fowl, termites and bamboo mast are preferred foods in the area of Southeast Asia where domestication likely occurred. The nutritional strategy of omnivores is a composite of that of faunivores, frugivores, granivores, and herbivores. Appreciating the nutritional strategy of birds that eat diverse types of foods illuminates the potential capabilities and limitations of generalists, like chickens and turkeys. The marriage of comparative genomics with comparative nutrition is likely to be fertile ground for future advancements in applied poultry nutrition.

Key Words: nutritional strategy • omnivore • Galliformes