Reducing broiler breast myopathies through supplementation of guanidinoacetic acid in broiler diets

SUMMARY: Performance and processing advantages have been noted in meat animal production when excess arginine is available in the diet. In addition, dietary inclusion of guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) has provided insight on sparing arginine for broiler chickens. Therefore, a study was conducted to assess dietary inclusion of GAA on broiler breast myopathy prevalence. Dietary treatments were established using a control basal diet fed over four feeding phases and treatments were allocated as an additional supplementation of 0.06% (GAA 0.06) and 0.12% (GAA 0.12) in the form of CreAMINO (Alzchem Group, Trostberg, Germany). Bi-weekly BW, body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), and mortality corrected FCR were calculated throughout growing phase. Broilers were processed to determine part yields, with breast and tenders being scored for myopathies. Both GAA treatments improved FCR (P < 0.05) compared to the control diet at 55 d. No differences (P > 0.05) were observed for BW or BWG throughout the growout period. At day of processing, no differences were observed in yields (P > 0.05). For woody breast (WB) and woody-like tender (WT), the control produced higher mean scores (P < 0.05) when compared to GAA 0.12. For white striping (WS), the control and GAA 0.06 expressed higher mean scores (P < 0.05) than GAA 0.12. No differences were observed in tender feathering (TF; P > 0.05). The results of this experiment indicate that GAA supplementation in broiler diets may be an effective tool for improving meat quality by reducing myopathy severity, without negatively affecting growth performance.