Slaughter parameters of broiler chickens at different levels and ratios of arginine and lysine in the compound feed

Abstract

The article presents the results of the research on the effect of different levels and ratios of arginine and lysine in the compound feed of broiler chickens on their meat productivity. We conducted the research by the group method, on 600 heads of Cobb-500 crossbred broiler chickens, divided into six research groups according to the principle of analogs. During the experiment, chickens consumed the compound feed that differed only in the content and ratio between essential amino acids: arginine and lysine. We established the efficiency of increasing the arginine-lysine ratio in the compound feed of broiler chickens to 1.10 at the age of 1–10 days; 1.06 at the age of 11–22 days and 1.07 at the age of 23–42 days. That contributed to an increase in the pre-slaughter live weight by 0.68–0.88 % (р˂0.05), the carcass weight before evisceration – by 0.97–1.27 % (р˂0.05), the semi-eviscerated and eviscerated carcass weight – by 0.39–2.24 %, the breast muscle weight – by 8.95–11.47 % (p˂0.01), and the leg muscle weight – by 1.67–9.47 % (p˂0.05). The yield of the breast muscles increased by 1.64–2.18 % (р˂0.01), of the leg muscles – by 0.17–1.47 % (р˂0.05); the meatiness of the carcass, breast and legs increased, respectively, by 3.45 % (р˂0.05); 1.80 (р˂0.05) and 1.64 %; the yield of edible parts increased by 1.46–3.96 % (р˂0.05). Narrowing the arginine-lysine ratio, accordingly to 1.02; 0.97 and 0.98, led to a decrease in the yield of breast and leg muscles by 1.91 and 1.07 %, respectively (р˂0.05); the yield of internal fat increased by 0.40–1.10 % (р˂0.05); carcass meatiness decreased by 1.08–3.23 % (р˂0.01), breast meatiness – by 0.66–2.15 % (р˂0.05), leg meatiness – by 0.43–1.10 % (р˂0.01); the yield of edible parts decreased by 0.11 – 0.33 %.