Apparent and True Availability of Amino Acids from Common Feed Ingredients for Channel Catfish

Abstract

The apparent and true amino acid availability values for corn, wheat middlings, rice bran, rice mill feed, soybean meal, peanut meal, cottonseed meal, meat and bone meal, and two different samples of menhaden fish meal were determined in adult channel catfish. Although there was reasonable agreement between protein digestibility values and average amino acid availability values, individual amino acid availabilities were variable within and among the various feed ingredients tested. Therefore, we recommended that amino acid availability values should be used for more accurate catfish feed formulation. In addition, it appears that the use of true amino acid availability values should be used for feed ingredients of relatively low protein content.

Apparent and true digestibility of protein and amino acid in feedstuffs used in Nile Tilapia feed as determined by the technique of dissection

“…Among the essential amino acids, leucine presented the highest apparent digestibility coefficient in corn (79.20%), in agreement with the findings of Wilson et al (1981) and Furuya et al (2001). In wheat bran, the amino acid presenting the highest digestibility was arginine (80.09%), as also observed by Ribeiro et al (2011), who obtained a value of 84.97%.…”

“…Threonine was the essential amino acid with the lowest apparent digestibility coefficient in corn (70.53%) and wheat bran (69.70%), which was also observed by Wilson et al (1981), Gonçalves et al (2009) and Ribeiro et al (2011). This low threonine digestibility may be explained by its high concentration in the mucin layer of the intestinal mucosa (Fuller, 1994) that, along with its low content in corn and wheat bran, would result in lower digestibility values.…”

“…Methionine and cystine presented the lowest endogenous losses, as previously observed by Wilson et al (1981), with channel catfish; Yamamoto et al (1998) These results may be partially explained by the lower content of sulfur amino acids both in the mucin layer and in pancreatic secretions compared with other amino acids (Pozza et al, 2003).…”

“…In most studies found in the literature with Nile tilapia and other fish species, arginine also presented the first or the second highest ADC values among essential amino acids for soybean meal (Wilson et al, 1981;Yamamoto et al, 1998;Furuya et al, 2001;Köprücü & Özdemir, 2005;Abimorad et al, 2008;Ribeiro et al, 2011), for corn gluten (Yamamoto et al, 1998;Abimorad et al, 2008;Ribeiro et al, 2011) and for fish meal (Wilson et al, 1981;Yamamoto et al, 1998;Furuya et al, 2001;Abimorad et al, 2008;Ribeiro et al, 2011).…”

“…There are few reports in the literature on true protein digestibility coefficients for fish, except for the studies of Wilson et al (1981) with channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus); Yamamoto et al (1998), with common carp (Cyprinus carpio), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and red sea bream (Pagrus major); and Ribeiro et al (2011), with Nile tilapia.…”