The influence of labile dietary methyl donors on the arginine requirement of young broiler chicks
2002
Chamruspollert, M. | Pesti, G.M. | Bakalli, R.I.
Two experiments were conducted with Ross x Ross boiler chicks in battery brooders from 1 to 14 d of age to determine the influence of dietary methyl donors on the Arg requirement of young broiler chicks. Experiment 1 had a 6 x 2 factorial design, with six levels of Arg supplementation (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5%) and two levels of DL-Met supplementation (0 and 0.2% of the diet). The design of Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except that a second source of labile methyl groups was added, 0.2% betaine (6 x 3 factorial arrangement). Both experiments had four replicate pens of 10 chicks each per treatment. The basal diet was based on corn (34.52%), whey (26.96%), corn gluten meal (16.53%), soybean meal (11.74%), and poultry fat (23% CP and 3.20 kcal/g of ME). At 14 d, three chicks per replicate were randomly killed, and breast muscle was collected and pooled for creatine analysis. The broken-line linear model was used to estimate the Arg requirements of the chicks. There were no differences in Arg requirements due to methyl source so the data were pooled. In Experiment 1, the Arg requirements were 1.17 +/- 0.04% for gain, 1.23 +/- 0.03% for feed conversion ratio (FCR), and 1.18 +/- 0.03% for muscle creatine, when the diet contained 0.45 or 0.65% Met. In Experiment 2, the Arg requirements were 1.20 +/- 0.05% for gain, 1.23 +/- 0.03% for FCR, and 1.26 +/- 0.02% for muscle creatine. There was no apparent difference in the Arg requirement of young broilers due to methyl donor supplementation.
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