The compositions of the basal diets for both experiments
are shown in Table 1. All of the diets were in
mashed form and were based on corn, soybean meal,
and sorghum. The basal diets contained starch, which
was replaced by crystalline amino acids to formulate
the different treatment diets. The nutritional and energy
compositions of the basal and control diets used
during the starter and finisher phases are presented
inTable 2. An analysis of the amino acid and protein contents
of the experimental diets (Llames and Fontaine,
1994; Fontaine et al., 1998) confirmed the calculated
values. Thus, these values were used in further calculations
(Table 2).