Dietary and physiological evaluation of meat and bone meal

Meat and bone meals as well as bone meals are used in pig, poultry, fish nutrition and as an ingredient in pet food, if there are no problems of acceptance. The feeding value of these products is found to be high. As results have shown protein content varies between 49 % and 68 % in DM and the digestibility ranges from 83 % to 86 % in pigs and from 68 % to 91 % in poultry respectively. The values for fat content - important for energy concentration - were analysed to be in the range from 9 % to 15 % in DM and the digestibility was measured from 67 % to 90 % in pigs and 83 % to 99 % in poultry respectively. From these results an energy value for pigs was calculated to be between 12 MJ Metabolisable Energy (ME) in bone meal up to 15.7 MJ/kg DM in a high protein meat and bone meal. The corresponding data for poultry were determined to be 10.0 MJ and 11.0 MJ AME(N)/kg DM respectively. As these products are additionally rich in calcium and phosphorus, the formulation of rations has to take into account this fact. Especially in case of phosphorus it is necessary to avoid an over supply. As about 90 % of the material is of offal from slaughter houses, the use of these products in animal nutrition means nutrient recycling.