Comparison of procedures for assessing nitrogen retention in chicks.

The nitrogen balance technique is widely used for protein metabolism studies and in this laboratory is being applied to research on interrelationships between diet and disease (Squibb, 1961). Recently, however, the experimental error resulting from N losses during N balance experiments has been stressed and the integrity of some N balance data questioned (Wallace, 1959). In this report the N retained by growing chicks, expressed as difference between N intake and excretion, is evaluated by two calculation procedures based on carcass analysis.