Relationship of dietary fat and lysine level with body composition in broiler chickens

The effect of dietary fat and/or lysine supplementation on the body composition of broiler chickens was studied. Body composition was measured by computed tomography (CT) and direct chemical analysis. Cockerel chicks from a previous experiment (Fekete et al., 1992) were used in this study. Ten chickens from each treatment group were euthanised, deep frozen and subjected to CT. Subsequently the bodies were dissected and ground to obtain homogeneous samples for chemical analysis. Supplementation of the diet with 6 g/kg lysine did not change total body composition but positively influenced the final body weight. In the treatment group receiving 40 g/kg added fat and 3 g/kg feed lysine (F-LYS-I) the higher body weight ran parallel with a higher fat content. The difference between the frozen body weight and final live body weight shows that lysine supplementation increased the water-holding capacity of muscle, which was the best in groups receiving a diet of normal energy content plus high lysine supplementation.