The Schothorst Feed Research Institute, an independent private research and consultancy institute for animal nutrition, recently performed a trial to determine the effects of graded inclusion levels of added methionine in broilers. Recent works indicate that DL-Hydroxy Analogue of Methionine (HMTBa) and DL-Methionine (DL-Met) have a dose-dependent equivalency with different asymptote values.

The study aimed to confirm this equivalency by assessing the two sources of methionine.

Over the course of 38 days, researchers compared the supplementation of HMTBa, DL-Met and their combination in broiler diets.

In total, 1,600 male and female Ross 308 broilers, housed in 80 pens (10 treatments × four replicates × 20 broilers × two sexes) were fed one of 10 dietary treatments, supplemented with HMTBa and/or DL-Met at three graded levels to a basal diet in the starter, grower and finisher phases.

Trial results indicate both HMTBa and DL-Met provided equal methionine value (100 per cent) to birds at all doses.

Below are the key findings from this study:

• Both HMTBa and DL-Met, when supplemented on an equimolar basis, were equally effective, at 90 to 110 per cent of the required doses, in improving growth performance of broilers up to 38 days of age, irrespective of the dose level used.
• HMTBa had higher efficacy to convert a given amount of total sulphur amino acid (TSAA) into one gram of bodyweight gain at high methionine dose levels in starter diets, when compared to DL-Met.
• In the finisher phase, HTMBa supplementation led to heavier bird weights, when compared to DL-Met, regardless of the methionine dosage.