LYSINE REQUIREMENT OF BROILER CHICKS AS AFFECTED BY PROTEIN-SOURCE AND METHOD OF STATISTICAL EVALUATION

1. An experiment was designed to test if the lysine requirement, expre ssed as g lysine/kg CP, was the same for several protein sources. 2. G roundnut meal, groundnut meal adjusted with indispensable amino acids or sesame meal supplied the dietary CP at 180 g/kg diet. Increments of lysine (I.5 g/kg diet) were added to each of these diets. 3. The gain , food intake and food efficiency responses of broiler chicks were ana lysed using a quadratic equation and a two-slope method. An estimate o f lysine requirements was also obtained from a survey of college stude nts. 4. The different methods produced widely different estimates of l ysine requirement. 5. The average lysine requirement was estimated at 50.1 g lysine/kg CP for groundnut meal, 61.7 for adjusted groundnut me al and 54.9 for sesame meal. 6. Reasons for the effect of statistical analysis and protein source on lysine requirement are discussed.