Ileal amino acid digestibility in different cultivars of chinese rapeseed meals for growing-finishing pigs

Studies were conducted with nine barrows, average initial body weight 44.5+/-2.1 kg, fitted with a T-cannula at the distal ileum, to determine the apparent ileal (and true) digestibility (AID and TID) of CP and AA in different cultivars of rapeseed meals and soybean meal. The barrows were fed either a casein diet or one of eight corn starch-based semipurified diets, formulated to contain 17.0% CP (DM basis) with one of seven different cultivars of rapeseed meal or soybean meal as the sole source of dietary protein, according to a six-period, nine-treatment, incomplete Latin Square. Chromic oxide (0.5%) was used as a digestibility marker. The pigs were fed of 4% of body weight twice daily, at 08:00 and 20:00 h. Ileal digesta were collected at 2 h intervals daily from 5 d to 7 d. The AID or TID values of CP and most AA. (Cysteine excluded) were significantly lower in the rapeseed meals than in soybean meal (p<0.05). There were significant differences in the AID or TID values of CP and AA among the seven different cultivars rapeseed meals (p<0.05); the seven rapeseed meals were arranged according to the size of the AA digestibility values of the rapeseed meals from the greatest to the least, as Zayou 59, Youyan 7, Ganyou 16, Qingyou 2, Huaza 3, Ningza 1 and Lianglou 586; differences in CP, AA, NDF and ADF contents in the rapeseed meals were mainly responsible for the variation in the AID or TID values of AA among rapeseed meals. The AID value of CP can be used as an index of the AID or TID values of most AA in rapeseed meals. However, the AID value of CP was less appropriate as a direct indicator of the AID or TID values for cysteine, methionine, tryptophan, phenylalanine and proline.