Project Number: 3620-41000-150-03
Project Type: General Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 13, 2012
End Date: Mar 31, 2014

Objective:
Develop rapid techniques for predicting digestible energy in soybean seed and meal.

Approach:
Conduct studies of amino acid digestibility and nitrogen-corrected, true metabolizable energy (TMEn) to be determined using caged, cecectomized Single Comb White Leghorn roosters. Each of the 10 test feed ingredients will be fed to 5 cecectomized roosters. Roosters will be food-deprived for 24 h prior to being tube-fed (i.e., crop intubated) with 30 g of test feed ingredient. A collection tray will be placed under each cage and all excreta will be collected over the subsequent 48 h period. Excreta samples will be freeze-dried, weighed, ground, and analyzed for amino acids (for amino acid digestibility), as well as gross energy and nitrogen for (TMEn), along with samples of each test feed ingredient. True amino acid digestibility and TMEn will be calculated and corrected for endogenous losses of amino acids and energy, respectively, using excreta samples from food-deprived roosters.