Growth performance and nutrient utilization in commercial broiler chicken fed diets supplemented with herbal methionine vis-a-vis synthetic DL-Methionine during summer season Nanda Subhankar, Tiwari D.P.*, Kumar Anil, Singh D.V. Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, US Nagar, Uttarakhand, India *Corresponding author: Email: dptiwari4@rediffmail.com
Online published on 31 August, 2018. Abstract An experiment was conducted to discern the comparative effects of dietary supplementation of herbal methionine and synthetic DL-methionine on growth performance and nutrient utilization in broiler chicks during summer season. A total of 180, day-old commercial broiler chicks were divided into 6 treatments with 3 replicates each and 10 broiler chicks per replicate. There were 6 dietary treatments viz., treatments T1 to T6. The treatment T1 served as control, basal diet (maize-soyabean meal based) without methionine supplementation, whereas in treatments T2 to T6, the basal diet contained herbal methionine at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% levels by replacing synthetic DL-methionine, respectively. The total supplemental level of methionine in the diets was 0.20%. The feeding trial lasted for 42 days viz., 0–21 days (starter phase) and 21–42 days (finisher phase). During starter phase (0–21 days), the body weight gains were 576.20, 611.33, 598.13, 606.93, 596.10 and 636.09 g, respectively, in treatments T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 and there was higher (P<0.05) weight gain in broiler chicks of treatment T6 fed basal diet supplemented with 0.20% herbal methionine than broiler chicks of treatment T1 fed basal control diet only, whereas during finisher phase (21–42 days), there was no significant difference in body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, performance index, protein efficiency ratio and production efficiency factor amongst the various treatment groups of broiler chicks. During the entire feeding trial of 0–42 days, the cumulative average growth performance was similar in different treatments, however, the feed intake in broiler chicks was maximum in treatment T3 (3253.93 g) and minimum in treatment group T1 (3056.69 g). The cumulative average body weight gain was recorded lowest (1717.36 g) in control group T1 and highest (1857.24 g) in treatment T6. The nutrient was better in broiler chicks fed diets supplemented with either source of methionine than those fed control basal diet, however, the values of utilization of nutrients were comparable in broiler chicks fed basal finisher diets supplemented with herbal methionine as well as synthetic DL-methionine. It was inferred that the supplementation of herbal methionine could replace synthetic DL-methionine in the diet of broiler chicks as both the sources of methionine showed similar growth performance and nutrient utilization. Top Keywords Broiler chicks, DL-methionine, Growth performance, Herbal methionine, Nutrient utilization. Top |