Deferiprone

This experiment was designed to investigate the effect of encapsulated amino acids supplementation and capped dietary starch levels on the growth performance of broiler chicks fed low-protein diets. Dietary crude protein (CP) was gradually reduced from 200 g/kg (CP20, a high-protein baseline diet) to 180 g/kg (CP18) and 160 g/kg (CP16). To ensure that essential amino acid requirements were met despite these reductions, encapsulated amino acids were supplemented to the diets. A 2 × 2 factorial design was implemented, involving two starch levels (capped and uncapped) and two glycine levels (with and without encapsulated glycine supplementation). Each dietary treatment was replicated 6 times with 11 male Ross 308 broiler chicks in each replicate, totaling 396 birds fed from 15 to 36 days of age. All dietary treatments were isoenergetic (3000 kcal AMEn/kg) with 10.9 g/kg standardized ileal digestible (SID) Lysine. The CP18 diet had no significant effect on weight gain (WG) and feed intake (FI), but feed conversion ratio (FCR) significantly increased by 3.24% compared to the CP20 diet (P < 0.0001). The CP16 diet USL+Gly significantly reduced WG by 10.19% and increased FCR by 7.87% (P < 0.0001). Capped dietary starch levels in the low protein (LP) diets significantly increased WG compared to USL treatments, with no significant difference from the CP20 treatment. There was no significant difference between the FCR of capped starch level (CSL) diets and the CP18 diet. Relative abdominal fat weight increased by 4% CP reduction (P = 0.0338), but was not affected by dietary starch levels. Dietary AMEn significantly increased with increasing dietary starch level (P < 0.0001). It was concluded that supplementing LP diets with encapsulated amino acids did not mitigate the reduction in growth performance in LP diets. To achieve similar WG as observed in the HP diet, it is essential to cap dietary starch levels while incorporating slow-release amino acid supplements into the LP diet.