Amino Acids Requirements of Poultry

[Joshuakoo124]

If you are in the poultry industry, you'll know, poultry, like all other animals, synthesize proteins that contain 20 various amino acids. While, birds are unable to synthesize 9 of these amino acids because of the lack of specific enzymes: arginine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Histidine, glycine, and proline can be synthesized by birds, but the rate is usually insufficient to meet metabolic needs and a dietary source is required. These 12 amino acids are referred to as the essential amino acids. Tyrosine and cysteine can be synthesized from phenylalanine and methionine, respectively, and are referred to as conditionally essential because they must be in the diet if phenylalanine or methionine levels are inadequate. The diet must also supply sufficient amounts of nitrogen to allow the synthesis of nonessential amino acids. Essential amino acids are often added to the diet in purified form (eg, DL-methionine and L-lysine) to minimize the total protein level as well as the cost of the diet. This has the added advantage of minimizing nitrogen excretion.
However, in the four kind of essential AA, Methionine is the most important AA in poultry body.

 

[rick]

Hi Joshua,
This is fascinating stuff and not easily available to those outside the industry/profession of rearing poultry commercially. I work with trees and text book references at this level of detail typically cost £300 -£600 so are outside the practical 'need to know' for those with a general interest.
I've thought about what it would take to formulate feed for my own hens and ran into 2 main reasons why (apart from cost on a small scale) it would be very difficult:
- While you can find generic values for some of the amino acids in various raw ingredients the range is pretty wide. You would need access to a lab to analyse the actual ingredients at hand in order to have any confidence that the target result was achieved.
- Personally, I am a pet chicken owner. I want to keep my hens for their own sake for as long as they can live healthy lives and this raises some uncertainty in my mind that the ideal nutritional reccomendations for the chicken athletes that the industry needs (the effects of which beyond 18 months is of no interest) is best in the long run. I don't know the answer to this except to supplement their diet with some greens and make sure they can get plenty of exercise!

So, along with most, I buy the most trustworthy layers pellets I can get and leave it at that.
But it is really interesting none the less.