Table 3.

Effect of dietary L-lysine·H₂SO₄ levels on carcass characteristics of broiler chickens¹

Items	Dietary L-lysine·H2SO4 levels, %				SEM	P-value
	0	1	4	7		ANOVA	Linear	Quadratic
Dressing percentage, %	91.5	90.2	90.9	91.4	0.83	0.66	0.97	0.54
Semi-eviscerated percentage, %	86.0	84.2	83.4	81.9	1.11	0.12	0.01	0.53
Eviscerated percentage, %	73.4a	71.9a	67.6b	62.7c	1.30	< 0.01	< 0.01	< 0.01
Abdominal fat percentage, %	1.1ab	1.2a	0.8b	0.08c	1.13	< 0.01	< 0.01	< 0.01
Liver index, %	2.1b	2.1b	2.8b	4.3a	0.19	< 0.01	< 0.01	< 0.01
Breast muscle
pH 45 min	6.2	6.2	6.5	6.4	0.09	0.11	0.05	0.11
Drip loss, %	2.1b	2.2b	3.3b	6.7a	0.43	< 0.01	< 0.01	< 0.01
Thigh muscle
pH 45 min	6.5	6.5	6.6	6.7	0.06	0.05	0.01	0.02
Drip loss, %	3.3b	4.4b	4.2b	12.7a	0.91	< 0.01	< 0.01	< 0.01

¹Broiler chickens fed with 10% L-lysine·H₂SO₄ supplemented diet were too small to collect carcass characteristics in this experiment. Means in the same row with different superscripts significantly differ from one another (P <  0.05). SEM standard error of the mean; n = 6/diet