17 W.C. Liu B.H. Ou Y.L. Yuan C.Y. Sun M. Xiao Z.H. Zhao L.L. An Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences JAPS 20202020/01/02 30 1 251-254 1018-7081 https://doi.org/10.36899/JAPS.2020.1.0029 <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: normal; margin: 12.0pt 0cm .0001pt 0cm;">The present experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with&nbsp;<a id="OLE_LINK14" name="OLE_LINK14"></a>different levels of betaine on nutrient utilization and digestive enzyme activity in indigenous yellow-feather broilers during starter phase. A total of 288 male, one-d-old Huaixiang chickens with an average initial body weight (BW) of 44.52 &plusmn; 1.07 g were randomly allotted to 4 treatments. Each dietary treatment consisted of 6 replicates, with 12 birds per replicate. The 4 dietary treatments were corn-soybean meal-based diets and supplemented with 0, 500, 1000 and 2000 mg/kg betaine, respectively. The trial period lasted 28 d. It was found that dietary betaine supplementation improved the calcium (Ca) utilization (cubic, P=0.0187). Meanwhile, dietary supplementation with different levels of betaine increased the trypsin activity (quadratic, P=0.0445) and lipase activity (cubic, P=0.0344) of the jejunum. Taken together, this study revealed that betaine could promote the digestive function in indigenous yellow-feather broilers during starter phase.</p> betaine; digestive function; indigenous yellow-feather broilers; starter phase Pakistan Agricultural Scientists Forum https://thejaps.org.pk/AbstractView.aspx?mid=AS-19-0059