Table 3.

Effect of different dietary levels of betaine on carcass traits of geese at 63 d of age.

	Groups2						P-valuea,b
Item1	A	B	C	D	E	SEM	Bet	Linear	Quadratic
Dressing percentage (%)	86.69	87.66	86.94	87.27	88.33	0.234	0.190	0.079	0.526
Percentage of eviscerated yield (%)	70.84	71.65	71.23	71.58	72.96	0.239	0.058	0.013	0.328
Percentage of breast muscle (%)	7.78	7.29	7.41	7.82	7.37	0.120	0.513	0.730	0.706
Percentage of leg muscle (%)	13.41	13.90	13.60	14.03	13.08	0.194	0.569	0.703	0.196
Percentage of abdominal fat (%)	3.90a	3.94a	3.26b	3.25b	2.89b	0.094	<0.001	<0.001	0.875
Sebum thickness (cm)	0.76a	0.64ab	0.60ab	0.56b	0.50b	0.026	0.029	0.002	0.532

¹Results are expressed as means, with n = 12 per treatment.

²Group A received only the basal diet; group B received the basal diet supplemented with an additional 600 mg/kg betaine; group C received the basal diet supplemented with an additional 1,200 mg/kg betaine; group D received the basal diet supplemented with an additional 1,800 mg/kg betaine; group E received the basal diet supplemented with an additional 2,400 mg/kg betaine.

^a,bIn the same row, values with different small letter superscripts indicate a significant difference (P<0.05), while those with the same or no letter superscripts indicate no significant difference (P>0.05).