You are on page 1of 3

APPARENT ILEAL DIGESTIBLE THREOINE REQUIREMENT FOR BROILER CHICKENS 1-21 DAYS OF AGE 1 Huynh Thanh Hoai , Xiuhua

Li2, Dagong Zhang2, Kim H. Huang23 and Wayne L. Bryden2 ABSTRACT: Threonine is usually the third limiting amino acid under practical poultry feeding conditions and plays an important role in protein accretion, feather growth, immune function, and in reducing heat stress. Many studies have been conducted to determine threonine requirements. However, the results vary greatly and most studies used the basal diets with a deficiency of total or faecal digestible threonine. There are no publications based on ileal digestible threonine. The aim of the current study was to determine the requirement of ileal digestible threonine for stater broiler chickens (1-21 days old). One hundred and seventy five day-old, male, Ross 508, broiler chicks were allocated into 5 dietary treatments containing 4.75, 6.00, 7.25, 8.50 and 9.75 g/kg ileal digestible threonine with 5 replicates of 7 birds per pen as an experimental unit. The results show that growth rate and feed efficiency increased as dietary ileal digestible threonine increased. However, there were no further significant improvement in growth rate and feed efficiency when digestible threonine content was increased above 6.00 g/kg in diets. Keywords: Ileal digestible threonine, requirement, starter/finisher broiler chickens. Introduction Threonine has been paid attention in diets for broiler chickens recently after huge works done with methionine and lysine. The availability of L.threonine as a feed additive allows poultry nutritionists to reduce further dietary crude protein concentration. It is because threonine is considered to be the third limiting amino acid after methionine (total sulfur amino acids) and lysine under practical feeding condition (Kidd, 2000; Irish et.al., 2003). Apart from body protein component, threonine serves other important functions in the bird including feather synthesis, immune response and reducing heat stress (Irish et.al., 2003). Since it is usually one of three most limiting amino acids and have important role in chickens, several studies have been done to determine the requirement of threonine recently. It has been demonstrated through literature that broiler growth performance and feed efficiency respond curvilinearly to the increasing of dietary threonine contents (Alleman et.al., 1999; Barkley and Wallis, 2001; Ciftci and Ceylan, 2004). However, these data on threonine requirement for broiler chickens vary among publications (Ciftci and Ceylan, 2004). Furthermore, most of the studies were based on total threonine basis and a limited number based on faecal digestible threonine. The current study aimed to determine ileal digestible threonine requirement for broiler chicken 121 days of age. Materials and methods Trials were conducted at experimental farm of the University of Queensland, Gatton Campus, Australia in 175 day-old male broiler chickens of Ross 508 strain. A completely randomized design (CRD) was used with 5 levels of digestible threonine, 5 replicates (pens) and 7 birds each pen. Semi-purified basal diet was formulated at very low levels of digestible threonine (4.75 g/kg). Levels of other amino acids were similar among treatments and were set as recommended by the University of Illinois (Baker, 1997). Different levels of digestible threonine in experiments were achieved by adding 0, 1.28; 2.56; 3.84 and 5.12 grams of L. threonine into the basal diet for 5 digestible threonine levels from 1 to 5, respectively. Ileal digestible threonine levels of treatments from 1 to 5 were 4.75, 6.0, 7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 g/kg. Individual bird weight and feed intake were recorded weekly. Dead birds were recorded of
1 2

Institute of Agricultural Science for Southern Vietnam School of Animal Studies, The University of Queensland, Gatton, QLD 4343 Australia 3 Present address: Aviagen Asia Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand

both age and weight for calculating feed conversion ratio. Experimental data were statistically analyzed according to the method of Steel et al. (1997) using Minitab version 13.0. Results and discussion Body weight (BW) and average daily weight gain (ADG) broiler chickens of individual weeks and the whole starter period were summarized in Table 1. The initial body weights of birds were similar among five treatments. At 7 days old, there was significant difference (P<0.05) of BW between level 1 and level 5. BW of other 3 levels was in between of the above two and there was no significant difference between them with either level 1 (4.75 g/kg) or level 5 (9.75 g/kg). By the end of the trial, birds fed diet containing 4.75 g/kg digestible threonine grew significantly slower (P<0.05) than those fed 7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 g/kg digestible threonine. There was no significant difference in BW of birds fed 6.0 g/kg digestible threonine compared to either lowest level (4.75 g/kg) or other higher levels (7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 g/kg). The differentiation among treatments became more clearly in accordance with the birds age. BW of birds fed digestible threonine level 1 was significant difference with only level 5 at 7 days, but it was significant difference with levels 3, 4 and 5 at 21 days (Table 1). Table 1. Body weight (BW, g) average daily weight gain (ADG, g/bird/day) of birds Parameters Digestible threonine levels (g/kg diet) 0.475 0.60 0.725 0.85 0.975 Initial weight 42.5 3.5 42.6 3.0 41.9 2.9 42.3 3.4 42.1 2.1 BW at 7 days 140b 6 145ab 9 147ab 9 149ab 14 151a 2 b ab ab BW at 15 days 413 32 437 34 448 18 458a 24 456a 27 BW at 21 days 746b 51 798ab 74 815a 41 842a 40 845a 52 ADG 1-7 days 13.9b 0.9 14.6ab 1.4 15.0ab 1.3 15.2ab 1.9 15.5a 0.2 ADG 7-15 days 34.1b 3.3 36.5ab 3.2 37.7ab 1.3 38.7a 1.9 38.2a 3.1 ADG15-21 days 55.5b 3.6 60.1ab 6.9 61.1a 3.9 63.8a 3.8 64.8a 5.0 ADG 1-21 days 33.5b 2.4 36.0ab 3.5 36.8a 2.0 38.1a 1.9 38.2a 2.5
Values are means and standard deviation from five replicate pens Values in the same row with different superscripts (a,b) are significant difference (P<0.05)

P 0.878 0.408 0.097 0.048 0.359 0.101 0.047 0.047

Similar to BW, ADG of birds fed 4.75 g/kg dietary digestible threonine was significantly lower (P<0.05) than those fed equal or higher than 7.25 g/kg digestible threonine (7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 g/kg) (Table 1). ADG of birds fed 6.0 g/kg digestible threonine was not statistically different with either those fed 4.75 g/kg or 7.25g/kg and higher. ADG of birds fed 6.0, 7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 g/kg digestible threonine were 7.5, 9.9, 13.7 and 14.0% higher than those fed 4.75 g/kg digestible threonine for the whole starter period, respectively. Table 2. Feed intake (FI, g/bird/day) and feed conversion ratio (FCR, g feed/g gain) Parameters Digestible threonine levels (g/kg diet) 0.475 0.60 0.725 0.85 0.975 FI 1-7 days 16.4 1.0 16.11.8 16.21.0 16.21.5 16.50.3 FI 7-15 days 50.2 2.5 51.22.7 52.03.5 52.72.0 53.42.5 FI15-21 days 91.8 6.5 93.83.7 93.14.2 93.94.0 94.14.3 FI 1-21 days 51.0 2.6 51.02.6 51.42.7 52.22.2 52.52.2 b a a a FCR 1-7 1.183 0.029 1.119 0.051 1.086 0.045 1.072 0.086 1.084a0.057 FCR 7-15 1.4920.126 1.4050.064 1.4070.016 1.3630.060 1.4020.078 FCR15-21 1.6630.206 1.5740.162 1.5260.038 1.4940.093 1.4560.064 FCR 1-21 1.5290.142 1.4680.144 1.4180.019 1.3850.060 1.3840.045

P 0.977 0.506 0.799 0.810 0.038 0.154 0.142 0.079

Table 2 showed that although average daily feed intake (FI) of birds increased linearly with the increase of dietary digestible threonine levels, there was no significant difference among treatments by individual weeks as well as the whole period of 1-21 days of age. Feed conversion ratio (FCR), on the other hand, was significantly improved (P<0.05) by increasing digestible threonine level from 0.475% to 0.60% and no significant difference among threonine levels from 6.0 to 9.75 g/kg during the first week post-hatching. However, during the last two weeks, there was no statistical difference in FCR among treatments, although FCR was improved when increasing dietary digestible threonine levels. Over the whole experimental period (1-21 days), FCR of birds was improved by the increasing of dietary digestible threonine levels, but no significant difference was found among treatments. Compared to threonine level 1 (4.75 g/kg) FCR of the four other threonine levels: 6.0, 7.25, 8.5 and 9.75 were improved by 4.0%, 7.3%, 9.4% and 9.5%, respectively. Trial result showed that digestible threonine levels of 4.75 and 6.0 g/kg were lower than the requirement of broiler chickens 1-21 days of age for optimal growth and feed efficiency. Although no significant difference was found between dietary digestible threonine level 2 (6.0 g/kg) and level 3 (7.25 g/kg), ADG and FCR of birds were improved considerably when increase dietary digestible threonine level from 6.0 to 7.25 g/kg. It can be summarized that optimal digestible threonine level for growth and feed efficiency of broiler chickens 1-21 days of age is 7.25 g/kg. This result is close to that recommended by NRC (1994) (8.0 g/kg total threonine) and a slightly lower than that of Baker (1997) (7.5 g/kg faecal digestible threonine). Conclusion Growth performance and feed efficiency of broiler chickens were affected by dietary digestible threonine levels. Increasing dietary levels of ileal digestible threonine resulted in increasing body weight gain and feed efficiency of birds. Trial results showed optimum growth performance and feed efficiency obtained at ileal digestible threonine level of 7.25 g/kg diet for starter male broilers chickens (1-21 days old). References 1. Alleman F, Michel J, Chagneau AM and Leclercq B (1999). Comparative responses of genetically lean and fat broiler chickens to dietary threonine concentration. British Poultry Science, 40: 485490. 2. Baker DH (1997). Ideal amino acid profiles for swine and poultry and their application in feed formulation. BioKyowa Technical Review-9, Nutri-Quest Inc. 3. Barkley GR and Wallis IR (2001). Threonine requirements of broiler chickens: an experimental validation of a model using growth responses and carcass analysis. British Poultry Science, 42: 616624. 4. Ciftci I and Ceylan N (2004). Effects of dietary threonine and crude protein on growth performance, carcass and meat composition of broiler chickens. British Poultry Science, 45: 280289. 5. Irish GG, Mack S and Lemme A (2003). Threonine requirement of broilers from 20 to 42 and 42 to 56 days of age: dose response data analyzed by exponential regression. Queensland Poultry Science Symposium, 11: 5, 1-5. 6. Kidd MT (2000). Nutritional considerations concerning threonine in broilers. Worlds Poultry Science Journal, 56: 139-151. 7. National Research Council, NRC (1994). Nutrient requirements of poultry. 9th Revised Edition. National Academy Press. Washington DC. 8. Steel, R.G.D., Torrie, J.H., Dickey, D.A. (1997). Principles and Procedures of StatisticsA Biometrical Approach. Third Edition. McGraw-Hill. New York.

You might also like