Effect of Oilseed Supplementation on Amino Acid Digestibility in Laying Hen Diets

  • Iulia VARZARU USAMV - Bucharest
  • Tatiana PANAITE INCDBNA-Balotesti
  • Arabela UNTEA INCDBNA-Balotesti
  • Gabriela CORNESCU USAMVB
  • Ili VAN USAMVB
Keywords: amino acid digestibility, oilseed, laying hen

Abstract

Linseed and camelina seed are used in laying hen diets for obtaining eggs enriched in PUFA, being also a potential source of protein for poultry. The bioavailability of amino acids is an important criterion used to evaluate the efficient utilization of feedstuffs. This sudy was peformed in order to determine the amino acid digestibility coefficients from diets supplemented with oilseeds and fenugreek seeds.

An experiment was conducted on 114 laying hens, assigned to 3 groups (C, E1, E2) and housed in metabolic cages (2 hens / cage, 38 hens / group). The hens were fed on a corn-soybean meal based diet. The experimental diets enriched in PUFA were supplemented with 5% linseed and 2 % camelina seed (E1), and 2% linseed, 2 % camelina seed and 1 % fenugreek seed (E2). During the final week, the ingesta, the feed leftovers and the excreta were daily recorded, in order to form weekly average samples for amino acid balance. The amino acids were determined by HPLC using a method according to the UE Regulation 152/2009. The digestibility coefficients of the dietary essential amino acids decreased significantly in E2 (P≤ 0.05) when compared with the control: for lysine 86.85 ± 2.74 % in C, 81.33 ± 1.97 % in E2; for methionine 87.30 ± 1.43 % in C, 80.99 ± 3.09%  in E2; for cystine 87.21 ± 1.40 in C, 85.16 ± 1.48% for E2. The group E1 did not register any significant differences compared with C and E2. The results of this study revealed a decreasing effect on amino acid digestibility in the group with supplemented fenugreek seed and oilseeds.

Published
2014-11-21