Supplementation of plant protein with amino acids for broiler production

A diet of sesame oilmeal, maize and barley supplemented with adequate lysine 0.50-0.78 (in total 1.18%-1.23% of the diet) was a suitable diet for fast growing chickens to produce broilers weighing approximately 1 kg in 7 weeks. The average feed intake per unit gain in the 7th week was 2.149 for chickens which had received plant protein and high energy level and 2.312 for those which had received about 2700 kcal. The gain achieved with sesame, corn and barley was approximately 95 % of that with the best animal-protein diets used in the Netherlands. Adding up to 10 % of sesame oil did not improve weight but it did improve feed efficiency and produced good quality meat. The response of pullets to lysine was better than that of cockerels. The plant protein varied in value, so it was much more accurate to deal with the digestible value than the crude value.

The high methionine content of sesame should inspire the agricultural offices in the Middle East to encourage farmers to produce soya bean, to make a high quality feed for broiler production. Soya bean lacked methionine, but it was rich in lysine and would make a good combination with sesame. In practice in the Middle East the supplement of lysine would diminish the cost of high quality feed by about 22.5 %, if it was used instead of animal protein.