Value of Methionine Supplementation of Chick and Poult Diets Containing a High Percentage of Wheat

Abstract

THERE is considerable evidence that chick diets containing soybean oil meal as the only protein supplement are improved by the addition of methionine (Hayward and Hafner, 1941; Bird and Mattingly, 1945; Clandinin et al., 1946; Mishler et al., 1948; Machlin et al., 1952; Slinger et al., 1952). Similar observations have been made with poults (Bird et al., 1948; Slinger et al., 1949; Saxena and McGinnis, 1952).Basal diets used in the above mentioned studies were high in corn with a relatively small proportion of wheat or other grains. Such diets are not typical of Ontario where wheat, rather than corn, is usually the predominating cereal grain in the formula. Although many published analyses show that wheat and corn are similar in methionine content it was of interest to study the effect of methionine supplementation of diets containing relatively high levels of wheat and soybean oil meal. EXPERIMENTALChicks were sexed …