Effects of Guanidionoacetic Acid and Arginine Supplementation to Vegetable Diets Fed to Broiler Chickens Subjected to Heat Stress before Slaughter

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the supplementation of guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) and L-arginine (L-Arg) as creatine precursors to vegetable diets on the carcass yield and meat quality of broilers subjected to two days of heat stress before slaughter. A total of 1260 broiler chicks were distributed according to a completely randomized design into four treatments with nine replicates of 35 birds each. The treatments consisted of: T1 -vegetable diet based on corn and soybean meal (control diet); T2 -control diet with the inclusion of meat meal (3%); T3 -control diet supplemented with GAA (0.08%); and T4 -control diet supplemented with L-Arg (0.8%). The birds were submitted to heat stress for two days before slaughter (from 42 to 44 days of age). The birds fed the diets supplemented with GAA or L-Arg presented heavier carcasses (p<0.0035), higher breast yield (p=0.0685), and lower of abdominal fat deposition (p=0.0508) than those fed the control diet and the control diet with meat meal. The cooking loss of the breast fillets of broilers fed the control diet supplemented with meat meal, GAA or L-Arg was lower (p<0.0068) compared with those fed the control diet. Thawing and pressure-driven breast fillet weight losses, and pH, luminosity, redness (a*value), and yellowness (b* value) values were not influenced by the treatments. When GAA is less expensive than commercially-available Arg, the dietary supplementation of GAA is more advantageous, based on the meat yield improvements observed in the present study.

Effect of Graded Levels of Guanidine Acetic Acid in Low Protein Broiler Diets on Performance and Carcass Parameters

“…These results agreed with those reported by many investigators (Kamran et al (2008a), Berres et al (2010), Laudadio et al (2012), Mousavi et al (2013) and Abudabos et al (2014) who all reported that dietary protein levels or GAA with or without amino acids had no significant effects in carcass weight, dressing percentage and abdominal fat, while results disagreed with those of (Kidd et al (1996), Nagwaz et al (2006, Kumar et al (2016) and Law et al 2018) who reported that reducing dietary crude protein linearly decreased the carcass yield percentage, breast meat and conversely increased the abdominal fat, while results disagreed with those of Esser et al (2017) and Ahmadispour et al (2018) who reported that carcass yield percentages was significant increased by the dietary inclusion of the GAA compared with the control group.…”

Performance, Carcass Yield, Muscle Amino Acid Profile, and Levels of Brain Neurotransmitters in Aged Laying Hens Fed Diets Supplemented with Guanidinoacetic Acid

“…Consistent with these findings, several authors have stated that the supplementation of GA improves the breast meat yield in birds fed a vegetable-based diet [2;4]. Additionally, Esser et al [ 30 ] reported that heat-stressed birds fed GA-supplemented diets have a greater breast yield than do the birds in the control group. These positive effects of GA supplementation may be attributed to creatine, the metabolic end product of GA, which plays a crucial role in the regulation of the energy-buffering system in muscles, as well as optimization of the protein metabolism [ 31 ].…”

Effects of L-arginine and L-citrulline supplementation in reduced protein diets for broilers under normal and cyclic warm temperature

“…This in turn leads to increased lipogenesis and abdominal fat pad accumulation ( Awad et al., 2015 ). Increased breast meat yield and reduced abdominal fat in birds reared under normal ( Al-Daraji et al., 2011 ; Wang et al., 2013 ; Castro et al., 2018 ) and heat stress conditions ( Costa et al., 2001 ; Esser et al., 2017 ) have been reported with Arg supplementation. As a metabolite of Arg, Cit showed equal effects as Arg in improving carcass yield and reducing fat pad in the current study.…”