The process of nutrient transfer through an ecosystem is an important determinant of production, food-chain length, and species diversity. The general view is that the rate and efficiency of nutrient transfer up the food chain is constrained by herbivore-specific capacity to secure N-rich compounds for survival and production. Using feeding trials with artificial food, we show, however, that ph...

Increasing quantities of maize distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) are being produced in the USA, and the nutritional value of “new generation” DDGS for pigs is much improved compared to traditional DDGS sources in the dry mill ethanol industry. Results from recent studies indicate that “new generation” DDGS is higher in digestible and metabolizable energy, apparent digestible amino a...

The cost of feed is at least 50% of the total cost of pig meat production with the energy component representing the greatest proportion. Therefore, from a practical point of view, it is important to estimate precisely the energy value of feeds, either for least-cost formulation purposes or for adapting feed supply to energy requirements of animals. Evaluation of energy content of pig feeds is ...

introduction protein is an essential constituent of all tissues of animal body and has major effect on growth performance of the bird. a better understanding of the nutritional requirements of amino acids allows a more precise nutrition, offering the possibility for the formulator to optimize the requirement of at least minimum levels of crude protein by essential amino acids requirements, gene...

Two experiments were done to evaluate the effect of increasing levels of dietary digestible methionine (Met) and Met:cysteine (Met:Cys) ratio on the productivity of Hy-Line W-36 laying hens fed sorghumand soybean meal-based diets. In Exp. 1, 160 hens from 68 to 75 weeks of age were assigned to four dietary levels of digestible Met (0.20 0.24, 0.28 and 0.32%). The digestible total sulfur amino a...

The daily energy requirements of animals are determined by a combination of physical and physiological factors, but food availability may challenge the capacity to meet nutritional needs. Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are an interesting model for investigating this topic because they are folivore-frugivores that adjust their diet and activities to seasonal variation in fruit availability. ...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of dietary fermentable carbohydrates (FC = faecal digestible organic matter faecal digestible crude proteinfaecal digestible crude fat starch sugars) on the body composition and meat quality of pigs. A total of seventy two Stamboek hybrid pigs were housed in groups of six per pen (two pens with gilts and two with barrows per treatment). Th...

Food habit studies are among the first steps used to understand wildlife-habitat relationships. However, these studies are in themselves insufficient to understand differences in population productivity and life histories, because they do not provide a direct measure of the energetic value or nutritional composition of the complete diet. Here, we developed a dynamic model integrating food habit...

There is little research data available on the digestible Lys requirement of broilers from 2 to 4 wk of age. Two experiments were conducted to determine the digestible Lys requirements of male and female Ross x Ross TP16 broilers from 14 to 28 d. Two diets (dilution and summit) consisting of corn, soybean meal, poultry by-product meal, and peanut meal were formulated to be adequate in all other...

Two N balance studies were conducted to investigate the effects of feeding graded levels of pectin (a soluble nonstarch polysaccharide, NSP) on the utilization of ileal digestible threonine (Thr; Thr study) and lysine (Lys; Lys study) intake for body protein deposition (PD) in growing pigs. In each study, eight Yorkshire barrows with an average initial BW of 17.2 +/- 1.3 (Thr study) and 14.3 +/...