Effects of lysine supplementation on growth of Noi broilers

Lam Thai Hung, Ly Thi Thu Lan, Nhan Hoai Phong, Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan¹ and Nguyen Trong Ngu¹

School of Agriculture and Aquaculture, Tra Vinh University, 126 Nguyen Thien Thanh, Tra Vinh province, Vietnam
ntngu@ctu.edu.vn
¹ College of Agriculture, Can Tho University,3/2 Street, Can Tho City, Vietnam

Abstract

Noi broiler chicks (one-day-old; n=256) were allotted to 4 treatments replicated four times with 16 birds in each replicate in a completely randomized design. The control treatment contained lysine at 1.0, 0.9, and 0.8% of the diet for three periods 1-28, 29-56, and 57-84 days of age respectively. The three experimental diets had additional lysine at levels of 0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.3% in each period. One male and one female bird were taken from each replicate to estimate the apparent digestibility (AND) on the last 7 days of the experiment. Ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃) was used as a digestibility marker based on the different concentration of Fe₂ O₃ in diets and feces. The birds were vaccinated against Newcastle disease and infectious bursa. They had access to fresh water and were fed ad libitum throughout the experiment.

The increase in dietary lysine did not affect feed consumption, but improved bodyweight gain and feed conversion ratio. AND was increased when additional lysine was increased from 0.1% to 0.3%. The concentration of glucose, total protein, globulin, creatinine, and uric acid in blood serum samples did not differ, but albumin was increased. These findings imply that lysine in addition to recommended requirement may have beneficial effects for broilers.

Keywords: albumin, digestibility, feed conversion

Introduction

Chicken meat plays an important role as a source of food for humans. In recent years, the yield of chicken meat produced has been gradually increasing due to consumption and population. Of all the scavenging poultry breeds reared in the Mekong delta region in Vietnam. Indigenous Noi chicken is a popular breed owing to its ability to adapt and favourable taste. According to the report of Vang and Ly (2000), of the total chicken population, the scavenging breed is estimated at 70-75% of total breeds. Also, the scavenging poultry has been suitable for developing chicken production systems at the household level in Vietnam (Do Viet Minh 2005).

For chicken meat production, protein has been an important nutrient constituent in the diet, but the supplementation of protein to meet chicken’s dietary requirements have been to focus on amino acid needs. As a result, the calculation of poultry’s dietary formulation was not only based on the protein ratio of the diets, but also balanced with limited levels of amino acids (AAs). Of all the essential AAs deemed to be necessary for poultry, lysine is the most important because it is the first AA limitation, and used to calculate other essential AAs in chicken diets (Emmert and Baker 1997; Mack et al 1999; Baker et al 2002). The research findings of Araújo et al (2005) and Corzo et al (2005) indicated that lysine supplementation with different levels in the diets influenced broilers’ growth and meat quality. Addionally, Fernandez et al (1995) and Rostagno et al (1995) proved that diets based on digestible AAs increases weight gain, feed intake (FI), and improve body composition in broilers.

Several studies on local chicken breeds in Vietnam have investigated both diets built on protein concentration (Do Viet Minh et al 2004; Nguyen Thi Thuy and Ogle 2007; Minh et al 2006) and diets based on the ratio of lysine to balance the diet (Lam Thai Hung and Nguyen Trong Ngu 2017; Hung et al 2018; Liu et al 2019). Broilers also have a poor feed conversion ratio (FCR) and lower carcass yield when they are fed on a diet with less than the required lysine (NRC 1994; Rezaei et al 2004). High dietary lysine levels in  broiler diets it have been reported to closely correlate with optimal growth rate and breast meat yield (Dozier et al 2009; 2010). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the different levels of lysine in the diet on bodyweight gain (BWG), and the FCR of Noi chickens - as well as apparent nutrient digestibility (AND) and blood biochemical parameters.

Material and methods

Animals and experimental design

A total of 256 one-day-old Noi chicks were allotted into 16 experimental units with 16 chicks for each allotment. The experiment was designed with a completely randomized design of four treatments and four replicates. The chicken dietary lysine in the control treatment over three time periods, 1-28; 29-56; and 57-84 days old, was 1%; 0.9%; 0.8%, respectively. The other three treatments for each period differed by adding 0.1% lysine for each treatment. The dietary crude protein over the three feeding periods were 19%, 17%, and 15% respectively, but the ME of diets for all of the periods was 2,900 kcal/kg of feed. Chickens were raised on a rice hull floor with a size of 3 m² per each replicate, and were fed and given fresh water ad libitum throughout the experiment. Chickens in all treatments were vaccinated against infectious bursa via eye drop on the 7^th and 21^st day and Newcastle disease via eye drops on the 5^th day and via ingestion on the 28^thday.

For the digestibility experiment, two chickens (one male and one female) on the last 7 days of the feeding period were collected from each replicate to evaluate the chickens’ AND of the varying diets. Two birds in each replicate were individually kept in a metabolism cage with the following dimensions: 40 cm (width) x 50 cm (length) x 40 cm (height). Feed was restricted to about 80% of the birds’ requirement and divided into two equal meals daily at 06:00 and 14:00 throughout the experimental periods. The birds’ AND was determined by the differing concentrations of the indigestible marker ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃) in the diets and feces. The concentration of Fe₂O₃ added into the diets was 0.1%. Birds were fed with the experimental diets with added ferric oxide in the first four days before collecting feces during the last 3 days. All of the chicken’ feces were collected every day and stored in a freezer at -20^oC. At the end of the collection, samples from the 3 days were thawed, then dried at 60^oC for further analysis.

At the end of the experiment, two birds (one female and one male) at 84 days of age were selected randomly from each replicate and had two blood samples taken (2 ml each) via the wing vein using sterilized needles and syringes. Before collecting the blood samples, the Noi broilers were fasted for 12 hours. Serum was collected after centrifugation, and the samples were stored at cold -20^oC before biochemical testing. The serum samples were determined using blood biochemical parameters including serum glucose, total serum protein, albumin and globulin concentration, creatinine, and uric acid by blood biochemical analyzer (Cobas, E-411, Japan).

Experiment diets

Feeding diets were a mix of yellow maize, soybean meal, rice bran, synthetic lysine and methionine, dicalcium phosphate, shell, salt, vitamin premix, and mineral premix. Concentration of methionine, cysteine, threonine, and other essential AAs were calculated to no less than the levels of ideal amino acid ratios outlined by Baker (1997). The chemical composition of yellow maize, soybean meal, rice bran, dicalcium phosphate, and shell were analyzed according to the methods described by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC 2000). The AA content of feed and feces were determined by the method of using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (AOAC 2006) at Tra Vinh University, Vietnam. Chemical composition of feedstuffs is presented in Table 1 and diets used in the experiment are shown in Table 2.

Data collection

Feed intake was recorded in each time period and calculated by adding the amount of daily FI during the whole period. Bodyweights were recorded and BWG was calculated. FCR was calculated by FI divided by BWG.

The birds’ AND was determined by varying concentrations of the indigestible markers present in the feces. Nutrient and AA apparent digestibility were estimated by the following equation:

where ND is nutrient content of the diet, Nf is nutrient content of the feces, Fe.D is Fe₂O₃ content of the diet, and Fe.f is Fe₂O₃ content of the feces.

Statistical analyses

The data was analyzed by General Linear Model - ANOVA with Minitab software version 13.2 and compared to the significant difference of mean between treatments by Tukey’s test, with alpha < 0.05.

Results

Nutrient intake, bodyweight gain, FCR, and apparent nutrient digestibility of Noi broilers

The supplementation of dietary lysine did not influence on the daily FI and CP intake (P>0.05), but there was a significant improvement in lysine intake, BWG, and FCR of Noi broilers. DM digestibility increased as the amount of supplementary lysine was increased and similar trends were apparent for CP, EE, lysine, and methionine digestibility (Table 3).

Effect of lysine in diets on blood biochemical parameters

Total protein, glucose, globulin, uric acid, and creatinine of the broilers’ blood supplemented with differing levels of lysine had no discernable change (P>0.05), but the albumin concentration was significantly affected (P<0.01) at 84 days old (Table 4).

Discussion

The curvilinear pattern of the growth curve shows that the major response to added lysine was when this was increased from 0 to 0.1% (Figure 1). In contrast, the feed conversion response to added lysine was linear indicating that it was probably profitable to add up to 0.3% extra lysine to the diet (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Effect of added lysine on live weight gain of Noi broilers	Figure 2. Effect of added lysine on feed conversion of Noi broilers

The findings of Araújo et al (2005), Zarghi et al (2020), and Selle et al (2007) proved the increase of dietary AAs or lysine resulted in an improved growth performance in chickens. On the contrary, Van Harn et al (2019) reported that using low protein diets supplied with AAs did not decrease broilers’ performance. Maynard et al (2019) also showed that birds had similar BWG when fed with diets with medium and high amount of AAs. According to the reports of Corzo et al (2010), and Kidd et al (2004), there are inconsistencies with studies using Ross × Ross 508 and CCB-500 broilers, in which higher dietary AAs densities increased BW.

For feed intake, the differences among treatments were not clear, probably because diets with differing lysine levels but they were similar in CP and ME. However, the report of Maynard et al (2019) and Zhai et al (2014) also showed that broilers’ FI was lower when diets had an increased level of AAs because FI was adjusted to maintain AA intake. The difference is that in the present work the diets contain the same ME and CP, while the previous studies only used diets with different levels of ME and CP.

In the present study, FCR values corresponded well with the findings of Zarghi et al (2020), of which it linearly decreased when Cobb-500 male broilers from 23 to 38 days of age were fed by the diets with an increasing dietary digestible lysine levels and the lysine level for optimizing FCR was 1.01% in the diet. On the contrary, Kidd et al (2004), and Corzo et al (2010) reported that Ross × Ross 508 and CCB-500 broilers that were fed with higher AA density diets did not improve FCR.

According to Selle et al (2007) diets with added lysine increased the ileal digestibility of lysine and the increase of lysine absorption may have influenced the uptake of other AA; thereby the intestinal absorption of AA was also reflected by dietary lysine concentrations in diets. This was because of the similarity of mechanism of the intestinal uptake AA and also carbohydrates (main ingredient making ME for birds) in birds’ intestine (Ganapathy and Leibach 1994). The findings of Humphrey et al (2006) presented that broiler chicks expressed cationic AA transporters in the liver and bursa when fed by lysine-deficient diets 7.0 g lysine/kg feed compared to 13 g lysine/kg feed. The report of Torras-Llort et al (1998) also showed that dietary lysine enrichment from 9.6 to 13.6 g/kg resulted in an increase of lysine transporting across the jejunal brush border membrane in birds. Therefore apparent digestibility of DM, CP, and methionine of broilers in the report improved with birds fed the diets with additional lysine.

For blood biochemical parameters, this result was similar to the report of Babak et al (2014), the diets supplemented lysine and methionine did not affect blood parameters (glucose, total protein, and uric acid) of chickens at 42 days old. Serum creatinine and uric acid values in chickens’ blood depend on age, species, quality and quantity of dietary protein (Simaraks et al 2004).  On the contrary, Batool et al (2017) reported that birds fed on 1.5%, 1.3%, 1.1% lysine offered from 0-2, 3-4, and 5-6 weeks of age had significantly higher serum glucose, total protein, and globulin levels. The results of Sahir et al (2006) also presented that serum TP concentration increased when broilers’ dietary lysine was increased.

Conclusions

• The supplementation of dietary lysine for Noi indigenous chickens from 1 to 84 days of age did not affect feed consumption but increased dietary lysine improved BWG and the efficacy of feed used.
  
  
• Apparent nutrient digestibility of Noi broilers was improved when dietary lysine increased from 0.1% to 0.3%.
  
  
• Blood biochemical parameters of Noi broilers were not affected by different levels of lysine in the diet except albumin which was increased.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the scientific research grant of Tra Vinh University.

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Received 16 February 2020; Accepted 21 February 2020; Published 2 March 2020

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