Methionine Supplementation of Breeder Diets

Abstract

ALTHOUGH several reports have been published on methionine supplementation of corn-soybean meal laying diets (Bradley and Quisenberry, 1961; Harms et al., 1962; Waldroup and Harms, 1961), few reports are available on the methionine supplementation of breeder diets. Neal (1955) observed that the addition of 0.05 percent dl-methionine to breeder diets did not have any effect on production rate, mortality and hatchability of eggs produced by meat-type New Hampshire chickens. The settable egg percentage was found by this worker to increase from 80 to 85. Mehring et al. (1954) studied the effect of adding 0.0847 percent dl-methionine to a corn-soybean meal 16.83 percent protein diet fed to New Hampshire pullets. They found no statistical differences in egg production, feed conversion or body weight gains. The addition of dl-methionine, however, significantly increased the percent hatchability of eggs produced.The study reported in this paper was initiated to determine the effects of supplementing…