Comparison Study On Nutritional Value Of Hydrolyzed Feather Meal And Steamed Feather Meal

Physi-chemical indices in vitro and biological indices in vivo and laying-hen feeding trail were used to compare the nutritional value of hydrolyzed feather meal (HFM) and steamed feather meal (SFM), study the optimum supplemental level of them in laying hen diet, and provide reference for theirs application in layer production.Exper iment I : HFM and SFM were used to analyses physi-chemical indices in vitro, including observation of physical nature and analysis of proximate, amino acid content, protein solubility (PS), and pepsin-HCL digestibility (PDP). Twelve Hy-Line Brown adult roosters were randomly divided into 2 treatments of 3 replicates each to determine the true amino acid digestibility (TAAD). The main results were summarized as follows.Crude protein (CP) content of HFM and SFM were similar (71.3% vis 71.0%, respectively). PS, PDP, and Cys content of HFM (45.01%, 79.26%, and 2.89%) were higher than those of SFM (35.22%, 66.43%, and 1.70%). TAAD of single and total amino acids of HFM were higher than those of SFM. There were significant difference on the TAAD of Lys, His, Met, Arg, Phe and Try between HFM and SFM(P<0.05), and no difference on the other amino acids. The results showed that phsi-chemical indices values and biological indices values of both feather meal vary enormously, and HFM had the higher nutritional value than those of SFM.Experiment II : This experiment was conducted to study the effects of diet supplement various level of HFM and SFM on the performance of laying hens and egg quality. 945 22-week -old commercial laying hens were allocated randomly to seven treatments of three replicates each. Each treatment was fed one of seven experimental diets containing 0, 2%, 4%, 6% HFM and 2%, 4%, 6% SFM. All the experimental diets were at the same lever of apparent metabolic energy (AME), crud protein (CP), Ca, NPP, Lys and Met content. The results showed that the treatment in the higher supplemental proportion of FM in diet inhibited the performance of laying hens. Feed intake, egg weight and eggproduction of 6% HFM and 6% SFM were lower than those of 2%, 4% HFM and 2% SFM significantly (P<0.05). Feed intake and egg production of the 4% SFM had a tendency of decreasing than those of the 2%, 4% HFM and 2% SFM (P<0.1), but higher than those of 6% HFM and 6% SFM. With the same level of supplement FM in laying hens diet, the performance of HFM treatments has higher productivity than that of SFM. There were no significant effect of diet supplement 2%, 4%, 6% HFM and SFM on egg quality. The performance of laying hens was not significantly influenced by the diet supplement 2%, 4% HFM and 2% SFM compared with routine corn-soybean meal type basal diet (P>0.05), but economic profits was increased by reducing feed costs. The results from this study showed that feather have good potential for use in laying hens diets.