Dietary methionine requirement of the Chinese egg-laying duck

1. The dietary methionine requirement of egg-laying ducks was assessed by feeding diets supplemented with graded levels of dl-methionine (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 g/kg dietary protein) for 8 weeks. The basal diet contained 175 g protein and 2·6 g methionine per kg feed (or 14·9 g/kg protein) and an estimated ME of 11·5 MJ/kg.

2. A total of 800 Shaoxin laying ducks (420 d old) were randomly divided into 5 groups of 160 each and fed in 4 separate pens.

3. Dietary supplementation of methionine significantly increased egg production and feed conversion efficiency.

4. Dietary methionine requirement for optimum egg production was estimated to be 25·7 g/kg of dietary protein or 4·5 g/kg of the diet or 380 mg/bird-d.

5. Methionine supplementation increased the methionine level in plasma, and the free glutamic acid and aspartic acid concentrations in plasma were quadratically related to dietary methionine levels. Increasing dietary methionine had little effect on egg quality characteristics.