Nutritive value of the meat and bone meals from cattle or pigs in broiler diets

The nutritive value of meat and bone meals (MBM) was assessed for broilers. The MBM was produced according to the revised (pressure) processing system ordered by the European Union (EC 96/449). Three batches of MBM from cattle (MBMcattle) and three from pigs (MBMpig) with different ash contents (224, 306, 387, and 209, 293, 430 g/kg, respectively) were tested for digestibility at a 10% inclusion level. The MBMcattle and MBMpig with the lowest ash (224 and 209 g/kg, respectively) were tested also at 20% inclusion. A basal diet (corn-soybean meal) was used as a control. Two-week-old broiler chickens were used in four replicates per treatment (14 to 32 d of age). The AME(n) of MBM was high (10.51 to 13.04 MJ/kg DM). Species origin had no significant effect, whereas more ash and a higher inclusion level decreased the AME(n). The factors investigated showed no significant effect on the excretal digestibility of CP or on total AA. Excretal digestibility of total amino acids (AA) ranged from 60 to 65%. The ileal digestibility of CP and AA of MBMpig with 209 g/kg ash was also tested at 10 and 20% inclusion. Excretal digestibility was significantly higher than ileal digestibility of CP (63.8 and 55.8%, respectively) and total AA (60.9 and 56.2%, respectively). The 20% inclusion level resulted in a lower digestibility for both methods. The digestibility of CP was measured by four different in vitro techniques, based on pepsin digestibility. The data showed a large variation and did not correlate at all with the in vivo digestibility values.