Relationship between abdominal fat and methionine deficiency in broilers

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between abdominal fat and the intake of methionine deficient diet in broilers. In this study, 66 male broilers at the age of 35 days were used. They were divided into two groups (control, n = 13, and methionine deficient group, n = 53) and all birds were housed in individual pens. During the experiment, normal and deficient diet contained 0.55% and 0.25% methionine, respectively. Control group was fed normal diet for 19 days. Treatment group received methionine deficient diet for 4 days and normal diet for 15 days. Body weight and feed intake were recorded daily. High (HG) and low (LG) groups were theoretically created according to the rates of decreases in individual feed intake. Percent decrease in feed intake of HG and LG groups was 29.4 ± 2.0 and –1.3 ± 1.7, respectively. Abdominal fat in HG and LG groups amounted to 1.62 ± 0.1 and 1.73 ± 0.2%, respectively. The feed conversion ratio of HG and LG groups was 3.1 ± 0.1 and 3.4 ± 0.2, respectively. There was a negative correlation (–0.45 in HG and –0.43 in LG) between the percent decrease in feed intake and abdominal fat.