Abstract
An experiment was conducted to determine if pelleting diets affected estimated digestible lysine needs for body weight gain (BWG) and feed efficiency (FE) of male broilers from 16 to 30 d. A 2 × 5 factorial treatment arrangement was achieved by feeding diets in 2 forms (mash and steam-conditioned pellets) with 5 levels of digestible lysine (0.75, 0.85, 0.95, 1.05, and 1.15% of the diet). Six pens of 25 male broilers were fed each dietary treatment. Performance of birds fed pelleted diets with digestible dietary lysine levels above 0.95% was generally superior to that of birds fed mash diets, regardless of lysine level. Weight gain and FE data were fitted to an exponential model, and digestible lysine needs were estimated at 95% of the asymptote of the model. Dietary digestible lysine needs of mash-fed birds from 16 to 30 d for BWG and FE were 0.87 and 0.90%, respectively. Dietary digestible lysine needs for pellet-fed birds for BWG and FE were 1.00 and 0.99%, respectively. These data suggest that feed form is a factor influencing estimated lysine needs of broilers in dose-response studies.
Published Version
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