Impact of Dietary Amino Acid Density on Broilers Grown for the Small Bird Market

Abstract

U.S. broiler integrators commonly reduce dietary amino acid density as a way of reducing overall diet cost since feed represents the majority of live production costs. It has been shown, however, that the former may not be necessarily true, and that perhaps maximization in production may lead to higher financial returns. A popular strain cross (Ross x Cobb 500) used for small bird markets was reared from 0 to 35d of age. Broilers were separated by sex, and data were analyzed as a factorial arrangement of treatments. Feeding high amino acid density diets to broilers was only beneficial if fed throughout the entire growout period. Benefits, however, were limited to improvements in feed consumption, feed conversion, and abdominal fat. No other parameters evaluated were affected by dietary treatments, perhaps as a consequence of the strain cross used in this study. Males had higher BW and lower feed conversion than females, as well as higher breast meat yield values. In conclusion, feeding broilers H nutrient density diets reduced cumulative conversion and abdominal fat, but did not affect uniformity or other carcass parameters.