THE PROTEIN AND LYSINE REQUIREMENTS OF LARGE WHITE TURKEYS DURING THE GROWING AND FINISHING PERIOD

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Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to study the protein requirements of turkeys from 16 to 24 or 26 weeks of age and also to investigate the need for supplemental lysine and methionine. No differences in weight gain or feed efficiency were observed on feeding toms diets containing 18% protein for the 16–20 week period, reducing to 16% protein for the 20–24 week period, and reducing to 14% protein for the 24–26 week period as compared with diets containing 16% protein reducing to 14% and then 12% protein. A similar lack of response was noted for hens fed diets containing 16% protein from 16 to 20 weeks reducing to 14% protein for the 20–22 week period, as compared with diets containing 14% protein reducing to 12% protein. Energy content of the diets was 3.08, 3.03, 2.98, and 2.93 kcal of metabolizable energy per gram of diet for the 12, 14, 16, and 18% protein diets respectively. Supplementing the diets with 0.05% or 0.1% lysine or a combination of 0.05% lysine plus 0.05% DL-methionine also failed to show any significant improvement in performance over the unsupplemented groups.The present study would suggest that the faster growing strains of turkeys may be capable of better utilizing the amino acids in a diet thus making for decreased requirements.