Effect of dietary methionine content on growth performance, carcass traits, and feather growth of Pekin duck from 15 to 35 days of age

Abstract

A study was conducted to establish the response of Pekin ducks to dietary Met from 15 to 35 d age. Experimental diets were formulated to contain 0.35, 0.45, 0.55, 0.65, and 0.75% Met (0.30, 0.39, 0.45, 0.56, and 0.68% on an analyzed basis, respectively) and 0.3% cysteine (0.25, 0.27, 0.26, 0.26, and 0.28% on an analyzed basis, respectively). Each diet was fed to 10 pens of 55 ducks/pen. Carcass yields and feather growth were determined at 28 and 35 d. Results showed that feeding 0.30% Met (0.55% Met+Cys) significantly impaired ADG, feed-to-gain (F:G) ratio, breast meat yield, and feather growth in comparison to the other dietary treatments (P < 0.05). BW, ADG, F:G, carcass and breast meat weight and yield, breast skin and subcutaneous fat weight and yield, the fourth primary wing feather length, and feather coverage showed significant quadratic broken-line or quadratic polynomial response to increasing dietary Met (P < 0.05). From 15 to 28 d age, the optimal Met requirement for the BW, breast meat yield, and the fourth primary wing feather length were 0.510, 0.445, and 0.404%, respectively, based on quadratic broken-line model, and correspondingly were 0.606, 0.576, and 0.559% by quadratic regression. For ducks from 15 to 35 d age, the optimal Met requirement for BW, breast meat yield, and feather coverage were 0.468, 0.408, and 0.484%, respectively, by quadratic broken-line model, and 0.605, 0.564, and 0.612%, by quadratic regression, respectively.

Influence of dietary rapeseed meal levels on growth performance, organ health and standardized ileal amino acid digestibility in meat ducks from 15 to 35 days of age

“…Our results are in accordance with previous reports, where a linear unfavourable change of growth performance in ducks was found with increasing dietary RSM; this likely suggests that incremental increase of dietary RSM supplementation levels accompanied with higher dietary glucosinolates concentrations can have an exacerbated adverse impact on growth. Furthermore, feather growth is especially important economic trait for meat duck production (Zeng et al., ). In the current study, RSM impaired the growth of feather in ducks.…”

Effect of Dietary Protein and Tsaa Levels on Performance, Carcass Traits, Meat Composition and Some Blood Components of Egyptian Geese During the Rearing Period

“…During 8 to 12 weeks of age, in growing Muscovy ducks, no significant differences in growth performance were observed when CP-diet was reduced from 16 or 15 to 12% based on similar digestible amino acids such as methionine, lysine tryptophan and threonine, Baeza and Leclercq [22]. On the other hand, increasing dietary Met concentration from 0.30 to 0.68% improved bodyweight at 28-d and 35-d in growing Pekin ducks while decreased feed conversion ratio by 7.95% (p < 0.05) as a result of nutrient utilization, Zeng et al [23]. In the present study geese fed on high protein diets had better BW and FCR, which due to relatively high nutrient utilization comes from the nutritive value of diet riches in CP and TSAA especially Met which is an essential and first amino acid in poultry nutrition, and geese body can not synthesis it.…”

Molecular Signaling and Nutritional Regulation in the Context of Poultry Feather Growth and Regeneration

“…Within a certain range, the quality of feathers is directly proportional to the level of methionine. Zeng et al (2015) found that compared with that in the 0.45 and 0.56% methionine supplementation groups, the feather coverage of 35 days old ducks in the 0.30 and 0.39% methionine supplementation groups was significantly decreased, and the most suitable dietary methionine supplemental level was 0.484%. These results illustrated that sulfur-containing amino acids, which have been considered the first-limiting amino acids in most practical diets for poultry, play an important role in feather follicle development and feather growth.…”

“…Importantly, feather follicle tissue is highly malleable, and dietary deficiencies can contribute to the obvious atrophy of the feather follicle, malformed feathers, fragile feathers, and feather loss. Dietary nutrition, especially crude proteins, amino acids, minerals, and vitamins, plays a key role in regulating the development of feather follicles and the growth of feathers (Supplee, 1966;Taylor, 1967;Urdaneta-Rincon and Leeson, 2004;Zeng et al, 2015). Therefore, it is important to dissect the effects of dietary nutrients on feather morphogenesis and the molecular mechanisms of feather follicle homeostasis.…”

“…Poor feather growth not only affects the appearance of the organism but also decreases the uniformity of the carcass and feed efficiency. Thus, bad feather growth reduces the net profitability of poultry production (Lopez-Coello, 2003;Zeng et al, 2015). However, in the commercial production of poultry, plumage defects often occur, such as feather pecking, molting, and inadequate body coverage (Bajpai et al, 2016;Coton et al, 2019).…”