Determination of the metabolizable energy content of common feedstuffs in meat-type growing ducks

Abstract

A trial was conducted using 275 growing Cherry Valley ducks to determine the apparent (AMEn) and true (TMEn) metabolizable energy corrected for nitrogen of maize, broken rice, rice bran, wheat bran, cassava meal, soybean meal and two fish meals with 550 g (low protein) and 600 g (high protein) crude protein (CP)/kg. The design was completely randomized with 5 pens replicates of 5 birds each per ingredient. Five extra pens were used to measure endogenous energy loss. Trial was conducted within 14 days with the last 4 days for feeding and excreta collection to measure the AMEn and TMEn. The AMEn were 14.65, 14.63, 12.33, 12.15, 13.38, 11.25, 11.85, and 11.92 MJ/kg dry matter for maize, broken rice, rice bran, wheat bran, cassava meal, soybean meal and low and high CP fish meals, respectively. The TMEn values were 0.76–1.47% higher than the AMEn values.