Effects of dietary supplementation of guanidino acetic acid on growth performance, thigh meat quality and development of small intestine in Partridge-Shank broilers

Abstract

The current experiment aimed at assessing the effects of dietary supplementation of guanidino acetic acid (GAA) on growth performance, thigh meat quality and development of small intestine in broilers. A total of 360 1-day-old female broiler chicks were distributed randomly to four groups of 90 birds each, and each group received GAA dosages of 0, 0.4, 0.8 and 1.2 g/kg of feed dry matter. During the whole experiment of 60 days, broilers had ad libitum access to water and feed and the feed intake was recorded daily. All broilers were weighed before and after the experiment, and 30 broilers of each group were selected randomly to slaughter at the end. Increasing dietary supplementation of GAA increased final live weight and daily body weight gain, gain-to-feed ratio, thigh muscle pH value and fibre diameter of broilers, but decreased daily feed intake, drip loss, cooking loss, shear force value, hardness, gumminess and chewiness of thigh meat. In addition, increasing supplementation of GAA quadratically increased duodenal, jejunal and ileal villus height and width and ratio of villus height to crypt depth, but decreased crypt depth. The results indicated that GAA as a feed additive may support better development of small intestine, thereby resulting in improvement of growth performance and meat quality of broilers.

Effects of dietary energy level and guanidino acetic acid supplementation on growth performance, carcass quality and intestinal architecture of broilers

“…So we can assume that the level of Arg was good enough in the diets with or without GAA supplemented to fulfil all metabolic roles, including gut maintenance. This finding is in contrast with some latest reports which showed that GAA supplementation caused better development of the small intestine, particularly greater height and width of intestinal villi (Ahmadipour et al 2018;Ren et al 2018).…”

“…Ale Saheb Fosoul et al (2018) showed that a reduction in the energy content of the diet decreased jejunal villus height and crypt depth. Although the mode of action for GAA on intestinal morphology has been proposed by some recent papers (Ahmadipour et al 2018;Ren et al 2018), information and data about the issue especially related to GAA and energy interactions are very limited in poultry, and most of the studies has addressed the role of Arg in relation to gut morphology and function. In the present study, birds fed the diet containing GAA had lower villus width and surface area.…”

Effects of guanidinoacetic acid and complex antioxidant supplementation on growth performance, meat quality, and antioxidant function of broiler chickens

“…Supplementation with GAA can spare the endogenous synthesis of GAA by arginine and glycine; thus more arginine and glycine can be used for the synthesis of proteins or endogenous amino acids to promote the growth of the body 5,6 . It has been reported that GAA supplementation improved growth performance and meat quality of pigs and broilers 4,7 . The addition of GAA also increased the creatine and arginine content.…”

Effects of dietary supplementation of 4-O-methyl-glucuronoarabinoxylan on growth performance, thigh meat quality and development of small intestine in female Partridge-Shank broilers

“…The water-holding capacity of the thigh muscles was estimated using drip loss, and the drip loss was determined as described by Ren et al . (2019). Thigh muscles were trimmed to 5 cm × 3 cm × 1 cm and blotted to remove the surface water.…”

“…In this trial, the tenderness of the uncooked thigh muscles was estimated using the shear force value as described by Ren et al . (2019). Before measurement, the thigh muscles were split into strips with size of 3.0 cm × 1.0 cm × 0.5 cm parallel to the muscle fibre.…”