Response of growing goslings to dietary methionine from 28 to 70 days of age.

1. A dose-response experiment with 5 dietary methionine concentrations (23, 33, 43, 53 and 63 g/kg) was conducted with goslings to estimate the growth performance and carcase quality response of growing goslings to dietary methionine from 28 to 70 d of age. 2. A total of 150, 28-d-old birds were randomly distributed to 15 pens with 10 birds per pen according to similar pen weight. There were 5 dietary treatments, each containing three replicate pens. Weight gain, feed intake and feed/gain of goslings from each pen were measured at 2-week intervals from 28 to 70 d of age. At 70 d of age, 4 goslings were selected randomly from each pen and slaughtered to evaluate carcase quality. 3. Significant effects of dietary methionine on daily weight gain (28-56 d) and daily feed intake were determined. Daily weight gain from 28 to 42 d and 28 to 56 d, daily feed intake and gain/feed showed significant quadratic response to increasing dietary methionine, while abdominal fat proportion showed a significant linear response. 4. When dietary CP concentration was 1582 g/kg, the optimal methionine concentrations for growing goslings from 28 to 42 d and 28 to 56 d of age for maximum daily weight gain were 407 and 4.14 g/kg, respectively.