A new open-access review in Poultry (Macelline, Liu & Selle, University of Sydney) makes an uncomfortable but important argument: ideal amino acid profiles for broiler chickens are likely to remain elusive targets.
Few findings:
Feathers compete with meat: Roughly 54% of dietary cysteine ends up in feathers, versus about 3% of lysine. And when amino acids are in deficit, the evidence suggests feathering may be prioritised over body protein deposition.
Absorption, not digestion, may be the bottleneck: Uptake across the small intestinal mucosa may be rate-limiting for growth performance, and amino acids can be pulled into catabolic or anabolic pathways in the gut wall before ever reaching the portal circulation.
Free ≠ bound: Non-bound amino acids skip digestion entirely and are taken up nearly four times faster than their protein-bound counterparts. This undermines the assumption of bioequivalence, especially in reduced-CP diets. Precision nutrition should look into developing mechanisms for slower delivery of unbound amino acids.
A lot of protein is simply burned: An estimated 40.8% of digestible proteinogenic amino acids are catabolised to CO₂. That’s a cost line and a nitrogen-excretion line at once.
The target keeps moving: Ongoing genetic selection continually reshapes nutritional demand, so any “ideal” ratio is chasing a bird that has already changed.
The takeaway As the authors put it, getting acceptably close still pays. More accurate amino acid profiles are an advantage for sustainable chicken-meat production. Precision here is a sustainability lever, not just a least-cost formulation exercise.
📖 Open access: https://lnkd.in/gGbsgbHt
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