Soybean Meal-Broilers

German researchers evaluated soybean meal, dehulled soybean meal and soybean hulls in three experiments with broilers. A secondary objective was to evaluate the effects of pelleting the soy products on chick performance. Results indicated that the apparent crude protein digestibilities were 83.3, 86.4 and 26.9%; the metabolizable energy values corrected for nitrogen (AME(N)) were 9.85, 10.33 and 3.7 MJ/kg (on a 89% dry matter basis); lysine availabilities estimated using a slope ratio procedure were found to be 78.0, 80.5 and 26.8% for the soybean meal, dehulled soybean meal and soybean hulls, respectively. Pelleting the soybean meals increased the lysine availability by about five percentage units. The researchers also obtained preliminary positive results using a protein-hydrolyzing enzyme to increase the lysine available in the soybean meal-corn-wheat based diet. The researchers indicated that the enzyme treatment needs to be confirmed in additional practical experiments.

Danicke, S., A. Kicinskas and H. Jeroch. 2001. Feed value and possibilities of feed value improvement of soy products for broilers. Archiv Fur Geflugelkunde 65(4): 157-167.