The objective of this work was to study the effects of substitution of DL-Methionine (DL-Met) by Methionine Hidroxi Analogue free acid (MHA-FA)in on equimolar basis, at different levels, as source of Methionine for broilers, from 1 to 44 days. Seven hundred male one day old chicks (ROSS), were used. The experimental design was in BLOCKs, to avoid ambiental effects, chicks were randomly distributed in five treatments with seven replicates of twenty birds each. The constitution of treatments was based on the substitution of DL-Met by MHA-FA in equimolar basis (0;25; 50; 75 and 100%). Diets were isonutritives for all treatments, differing only in respect to the source of Methionine. The parameters evaluated in this study were: body weight, feed consumption, feathering, abdominal fat pad, carcass yeld and liver weight. No significant differences between sources of Methionine were observed for the parameters, no matter the level of substitution, with exception for feathering, were the use of MHA-FA give the poorest result. Based on the results, one can conclude that the substitution of DL-Met for MHA-FA, in equimolar basis, produce the same performance of broilers, from 1 to 44 days.
aminoacid; levels methionine DL and MHA-FA; broilers
