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Efficiency of lysine and arginine utilization in broilers

Nogueira, B., L. de Freitas, M. Reis, G. Viana and N. Sakomura
2021

To determine the efficiencies of Lysine (Lys) and Arginine (Arg) utilization, twelve dose-response assays were conducted to describe male and female broiler chicken responses to Lys or Arg intake, as well as estimate the efficiency of both amino acids utilization for growth. In each assay, 1280 Cobb 500® broiler chicks (640 males and 640 females) in the starter (1 to 14 days old), grower (15 to 28 days old), and finisher (29 to 42 days old) phases were randomly assigned to one of 8 dietary treatments with four replicates of 20 birds each. The experimental diets were formulated using the dilution technique, where the concentration of digestible Lys investigated ranged from 8.70 to 17.5 g Lys/kg feed in the starter phase, from 7.8 to 15.7 g Lys/kg feed in grower phase, and 6.4 to 12.8g Lys/kg feed in finisher phase, and the content of digestible Arg ranged from 9.3 to 18.7 g Arg/kg feed in the starter phase, from 8.4 a 16.8 g Arg/kg feed in grower phase, and 6.8 to 13.7g Arg/kg feed in finisher phase. An additional treatment was included in all the assays to confirm whether Lys and Arg were the limiting amino acids in the feeds. The deposition of protein, Lys, and Arg in the feather-free body and feathers was measured using the comparative slaughter technique. The efficiency of Lys and Arg utilization was estimated, for each phase and gender, as the slope of the first-degree linear regression equation: AAdep=ß+k*AATi, where AAdep is the investigated amino acid deposition, ß is the intercept, and AATi is the amino acid intake above maintenance requirement, calculated as the total intake of each evaluated amino acid minus its need for maintenance (36 mg of Arg and 45 mg of Lys). The efficiencies were compared using a linear regression with groups (GenStat, VSN International, 2017), the differences were considered statistically significant at 5% of probability. The efficiency of Lys utilization was estimated in 0.80, 0.81, and 0.81 for starter, grower, and finisher male broilers respectively, and in 0.78, 0.76, and 0.78 for females in the same phases. The efficiency of Arg utilization for male broiler chickens was estimated in 0.63, 0.63, and 0.62 in starter, grower, and finisher phases, respectively, while females had an efficiency of utilization for Arg estimated in 0.61, 0.63, 0.61 in starter, grower, and finisher phases, respectively.

Our findings demonstrated that the efficiency of Lys and Arg utilization was not affected by either age or gender (P>0.05). Overall, Lys and Arg were utilized for growth at 0.79 and 0.62, respectively.