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No Abstract. Animal Production Research Avancees Vol. 3 (3) 2007: pp. 216-218

Methiorep®, an herbal methionine premix, which is reported to contain herbal ingredients that mimic the activity of Methionine such as SAMe (S-Adenosyl Methionine) and phosphatidyl choline, have recently introduced to Nigeria animal feed industry. An experiment was conducted with 120, one-week-old broilers to evaluate the effect of herbal methionine (methiorep®) as substitute for synthetic methionine on growth performance of broiler chickens. Five isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets were formulated and Diet 1 (control), comprised of 0.25% methionine (NRC, 1994) while diet 2, 3, 4 and 5 comprised of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% Methiorep® as substitute for methionine in the diets. The birds were randomly allocated to five experimental treatments, each treatment was replicated three times with eight birds per pen in a completely randomized design. The study lasted 49-days. The results of growth performance revealed that body weight gain, average feed intake and feed conversion ratio at both starter and finisher phases were not influenced by dietary treatments (P>0.05). However cost per kg feed decreased as the level of Methiorep® increased in the diets (P0.05) by the dietary treatments. It was concluded that Methiorep® can completely substitute for Methionine in the diets of broiler chickens without adverse effect on growth performance, blood profiles and carcass yield of birds.