The digestibility of dried microbial cells grown on methanol in diets for growing pigs

Abstract

SummaryA microbial cell product was compared with fish meal at three levels of dietary inclusion, using barley as the basal diet. Digestibility coefficients for flash-dried microbial cells (DMC) were calculated to be 0·85 for gross energy and 0·91 for N. Digestible energy (DE) values were 18·8 MJ DE/kg D.M. for DMC and 16·5 MJ DE/kg D.M. for the fish meal. Digestible nitrogen (DN) values were 119 g DN/kg D.M. for the DMC protein and 108 g DN/kg D.M. for the fish meal. The metabolizable energy (ME) values for diets containing DMC were similar to those for diets containing fish meal; ME/DE for diets containing about 16·5% crude protein was 0·96. Microbial N was less efficiently utilized than fish meal N; this was largely attributed to the different contents of nucleic acid N.