Supplemental Value of Fish Meal Protein in Relation to Other Sources of Protein in the Test Diet

Abstract

THE AVAILABILITY of low cost vegetable protein concentrates, synthetic vitamins and numerous unidentified factor sources has resulted in a shift of interest in fish meal as a source of these factors in poultry rations to one of fish meal as a source of amino acids.Bioassay methods have been developed which can be used for evaluating fish meal as a source of amino acids in poultry diets. Grau and Williams (1955) evaluated a large number of fish meal samples when used as the source of amino acids at the 20% protein level. Heiman et al. (1939) and more recently Carpenter et al. (1955) evaluated fish meals on the basis of their ability to supplement mixtures of cereal grain proteins.Attempts to correlate the relative protein quality of fish meals as the sole source of amino acids with their values as a source of supplemental amino acids in poultry diets have …