This study was carried out with the objective of estimating the nutritional requirements of digestible lysine for broiler from 1 to 42 days old. A total of 1,950 male Cobb chicks were used (750, 600 and 600 in pre-initial, initial and growing phase, respectively) with initial weight of 45.1 ± 0.6, 160.5 ± 2.4 g and 746.3 ± 10.7 g, respectively. The birds were distributed in a completely randomized design, using six treatments and five repetitions, with 25, 20, and 20 chicks per experimental unit in the pre-initial, initial and growing phases, respectively. The treatments consisted of a lysine-deficient basal diet that was supplement with L-lysine.HCl in order to contain six digestible lysine levels (1.10, 1.16, 1.22, 1.28, 1.34 and 1.40%; 0.92, 0.98, 1.04, 1.10, 1.16 and 1.22% and 0.815, 0.875, 0.935, 0.995, 1.055 and 1.115%, for the pre-initial, initial and growing phases, respectively). The characteristics evaluated were: feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion, weight and carcass yield and prime cuts, relative and absolute weight of edible viscera and abdominal fat. In all phases, there was a linear effect of digestible lysine levels on feed intake and quadratic effect on weight gain feed conversion. There was no effect of the digestible lysine levels on the absolute weights of carcass, heart, and abdominal fat, carcass yields, breast, thigh and drumsticks, and on the relative weights of the heart, liver, gizzard and abdominal fat. However, there was a quadratic effect on the absolute weights of the breast, drumstick, thigh and liver. Digestible lysine levels recommended for male broilers are 1.286; 1,057 and 0,998% in the pre-initial, initial and growing phases, respectively.
amino acid; aviculture; ideal protein; performance
