Determination of true digestible amino acids of feedstuffs utilizing cecectomized roosters

The objective of this study was to estimate the true digestibility coefficients of amino acids and digestible amino acid values of some poultry feedstuffs. The feedstuffs were: babassu meal, sunflower meal, corn gluten meal, babassu starchy meal, meat and bone meal, common beans, pearl millet and residues of cookies, pasta and bread. The precise feeding method of Sibbald was used with adult cecectomized Leghorn roosters distributed in a completely randomized design, consisting of ten treatments and six replications with a rooster in each. The treatments were represented by the feedstuffs evaluated. The roosters were kept in a period of fasting for 36 hours and then fed 30 grams of feed. Samples were collected during 56 hours. Simultaneously, six roosters were kept fasting to make corrections to the metabolic and endogenous losses of amino acids. At the end of collections, the excreta obtained were weighed, freeze-dried and subsequently processed, so laboratory analyses were carried out and the coefficients of true digestibility of amino acids were determined. The mean values of the coefficients of true digestibility of essential and non-essential amino acids in percentage were respectively: 0.702 and 0.652 for the babassu meal; 0.852 and 0.786 for the sunflower meal; 0.928 and 0.887 for the corn gluten meal; 0.797 and 0.720 for the meat and bone meal; 0.364 and 0.339 for ground raw beans; 0.924 and 0.837 for ground pearl millet; 0.839 and 0.810 for cookie residue; 0.929 and 0.914 for pasta residue; and 0.904 and 0.899 for bread residue.