Table 3.

Effects of dietary taurine at different levels on growth performance of broilers.

Items	Dietary taurine concentration treatment3				SEM1	P Value
	CON	TAU1	TAU2	TAU3		Linear2	Quadratic2
21 D BW, g	589.144c	645.379a,b	635.331b	664.200a	5.981	<0.001	0.062
42 D BW, g	1,870.420b	1,990.649a	2,042.854a	2,037.254a	16.578	<0.001	0.011
1–21 D
BWG (g/bird)	548.766c	604.916a,b	594.852b	623.688a	5.968	<0.001	0.061
FI (g/bird)	835.574b	855.081a,b	877.602a,b	898.719a	9.836	0.017	0.966
G/F (g/g)	0.658	0.711	0.679	0.697	0.009	0.292	0.336
22–42 D
BWG (g/bird)	1,281.276b	1,345.270a,b	1,407.523a	1,373.054a	14.399	0.005	0.056
FI (g/bird)	2,244.814b,c	2,292.604a,b	2,154.589c	2,378.973a	25.027	0.178	0.049
G/F (g/g)	0.571b	0.590b	0.653a	0.578b	0.009	0.143	0.001
1–42 D
BWG (g/bird)	1,830.042b	1,950.186a	2,002.375a	1,996.741a	16.587	<0.001	0.011
FI (g/bird)	3,080.388b	3,147.685a,b	3,032.191b	3,277.692a	28.564	0.038	0.079
G/F (g/g)	0.594b	0.621b	0.660a	0.610b	0.006	0.042	<0.001

^a–cMeans within the same row with no common superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05).

Abbreviations: BWG, BW gain; FI, feed intake; G/F, gain-to-feed ratio.

¹Standard error of the means (n = 8).

²Orthogonal polynomials were used to evaluate linear and quadratic responses to the levels of taurine treatment.

³CON, basal diet; TAU1, TAU2 and TAU3 group, basal diet adding 2.50, 5.00, and 7.50 g/kg TAU, respectively.