Vet World   Vol.13   December-2020  Article-23

Growth performance and small intestinal morphology of native chickens after feed supplementation with tryptophan and threonine during the starter phase

Background and Aim: The amino acid content of feed can affect growth performance of poultry during the first 6 weeks of life or the starter phase. Unlike for broiler and layer chickens, there is no information concerning standard requirements for tryptophan and threonine during the starter phase. This study aimed to determine the amount of threonine and tryptophan that should be supplemented in chicken feed to maximize growth performance and small intestinal morphology of native chickens during the starter phase.

Materials and Methods: A total of 128 day-old native chickens were divided into four treatment groups with four replications based on a completely randomized design. The treatment diets were as follows: T0 (control feed); T1 (T0+0.10% L-tryptophan+0.35% L-threonine); T2 (T0+0.17% L-tryptophan+0.68% L-threonine); and T3 (T0+0.25% L-tryptophan+1.00% L-threonine).

Results: The feed intake was highest for the T2 and T3 groups (123.06 and 124.18 g/bird/week, respectively). The T3 group had the highest body weight gain (49.35 g/bird/week) and carcass weight (201.44 g/bird) relative to the other groups, while the T2 and T3 groups showed similar, significant (p<0.05) increases in feed conversion ratio (2.57 and 2.51, respectively) and carcass percentage (60.88 and 60.99%/bird, respectively) compared to the other groups. This study showed villi height, crypt depth, and villi width of duodenum, the highest jejunum and ileum of T3 (1109.00±27.26, 1325.50±75.00, 1229.50±101.68, 225.50±17.52, 236.00±24.81, 219.75±17.25, 192.25±14.41, 191.75±4.79, and 184.75±6.40, respectively) compare to other treatment.

Conclusion: These results indicate that supplementation of feed with 0.17% L-tryptophan and 0.68% L-threonine positively affected the growth performance and small intestinal morphology of native chickens during the starter phase. Keywords: growth performance, native chickens, small intestinal morphology, starter phase, threonine, tryptophan.

Keywords: growth performance, native chickens, small intestinal morphology, starter phase, threonine, tryptophan.

How to cite this article: Lisnahan CV, Nahak OR (2020) Growth performance and small intestinal morphology of native chickens after feed supplementation with tryptophan and threonine during the starter phase, Veterinary World, 13(12): 2765-2771.

Received: 24-08-2020  Accepted: 13-11-2020     Published online: 24-12-2020

Corresponding author: Charles V. Lisnahan   E-mail: charleslisnahan@yahoo.co.id

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2020.2765-2771

Copyright: Lisnahan and Nahak, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.