Millan | Dreamstime.com
At the most recent meeting of the Poultry Science Association in Philadelphia, a good number of research reports focused on the use of synthetic amino acids in disease-challenged animals. Of particular interest, at least to me, was their effect of coccidia challenge, because the question about the interplay between protein and disease is at least 30 years old and perhaps it goes even beyond that.
Of the several amino acids tested, those directly associated with growth, such as methionine and lysine, gave inconclusive results. Perhaps the challenge was not enough, or the dosage was not right, but in all truth, I would have been surprised if anything strong came out of these attempts.
