Effects of dietary levels of methionine and lysine on performance of growing japanese quail

Abstract EN

The experimental work was designed to study the effects of supplemental methionine (Met) and lysine (Lys) on performance of growing Japanese quail.

Two hundred and seventy, 1day-old unsexed birds were allotted to 5 treatments and were fed the experimental diets.

The composition of the experimental diets was as follows : 1.

D1, corn-soybean meal diet with an animal protein source containing methionine and lysine levels as recommended by NRC, 1994.

2.

D2, corn-soybean meal diet without any source of animal protein or supplemental methionine and lysine.

The diet has a deficiency of methionine and lysine and considered as the negative control.

3.

D3 is the same composition of D2 and supplemented with methionine and lysine as recommended by NRC, and considered as the control.

4.

D4 is the same composition of D3 with supplemental methionine and lysine to the level of 120 % of NRC, recommendations.

5.

D5 is the same composition of D3 with supplemental methionine and lysine to the level of 140 % of NRC, recommendations.

The results obtained indicated that there were insignificant effects of increasing dietary Met and Lys levels on Japanese quail growth performance.

The diet containing no more than 1.12 % Lys and 0.42 % Met (D2) was enough for satisfactory live body weight (LBW), growth rate (GR), performance index (PI) and feed intake (FI).

With respect of the whole period, there were insignificant effects of increasing dietary Met and Lys levels on Japanese quail feed conversion (FC), crude protein conversion (CPC), and caloric conversion ratio (CCR), also the dietary 1.12 % Lys and 0.42 % Met levels were sufficient to obtain the optimum values of FC, CPC and CER for Japanese quail.

From the economical point of view, it can be recommended that the diet containing no more than 1.12 % Lys and 0.42 % Met levels were the best diet for feeding the growing Japanese quail.