Studies on metabolism and concentrations of immunoglobulin G in the newly hatched turkey poult.

Persistence of maternal IgG in the hatched turkey poult was studied using 125I-labeled egg yolk IgG injected at hatching. Determinations were made of the half-life of IgG in the total plasma pool, and results indicated half-life for IgG of 4.08 +/- 0.33 days. Elimination of the injected IgG (comparable with maternal IgG) was described as the percentage of the injected dose remaining in the plasma with 30.53%, 10.31%, and 3.48% of the injected dose at 7, 14, and 21 days, respectively, after injection.