Betaine, also known as trimethylglycine, whose molecular formula is C5H11O2N and chemical name is trimethylaminoethyl lactone, which is a quaternary amine alkaloid. It has three indispensable active methyl groups in animal body, two more methyl groups than methionine, and is a highly efficient methyl donor.

Physical and chemical characteristics: Betaine is a white ridge granular or leaf like crystal, melting point 293℃, its taste sweet. Betaine liquid is soluble in water, soluble in methanol and ethanol, slightly soluble in ether. It is highly hydrating, highly absorbent and deliquescent at room temperature. Betaine is very stable, resistant to high temperature of 200℃, and has strong oxidation resistance. It was proved to be drug-free by toxicity test.

The role of betaine

Betaine can ensure the methyl groups involved in various biochemical reactions in animals to ensure the normal anabolism of nucleic acids and proteins. Can promote adipose metabolism, raise lean meat rate, prevent fatty liver, enhance immune function. It can regulate cell osmotic pressure, reduce stress response and ensure normal growth of animals. It can stimulate the sense of smell and taste of animals, and is a good attractant, especially for aquatic animals, it has the functions of increasing food intake and survival rate, reducing bait coefficient, promoting growth and so on. Betaine can maintain higher stability of vitamin than choline when combined with vitamin in premixed feed.

Betaine saves farming costs

98% betaine hydrochloride: 50% choline chloride =1:3.12, choline in poultry raw materials is generally used for metabolic functions of the body, such as phospholipid synthesis and fat metabolism. Under these conditions, externally added choline chloride can be replaced by the equivalent of the above formula.

Betaine cannot completely replace methionine because betaine cannot replace methionine in protein synthesis. According to current poultry nutritional requirements, betaine can generally replace 15-25% of synthetic methionine without compromising performance. When the methionine requirement design of compound feed is very low, summer poultry feed intake is less, easy to cause a significant lack of methionine, pecking, slow growth, low feed efficiency. At this time, betaine was added in the diet to provide methyl for methionine and increase the safety factor. Betaine can not only provide methyl, but also regulate osmotic pressure when the supplemental level is at least 700g/T in the feed. In the case of severe osmotic shock, the recommended dosage of betaine is 1-1.5kg/T.