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Nutrient digestibility and energy value of hydrolysed feather meal in poultry

Hydrolysed feather meal is a promising alternative protein feed for animals, containing 75 90% protein and helping reduce the environmental risks of poultry waste disposal. The effectiveness and nutritional value of feather meal depend significantly on the quality of the starting material and the technological features of its production (temperature, pressure, processing mode, use of acids, alkalis, or enzymes, degree of purification from impurities, etc.). Despite the significant potential for replacing traditional protein feeds (soybean meal, fish meal), one of the main problems remains the insufficient number of reliable studies and data on the nutritional value of hydrolysed feather meal for different animal species, as well as the presence of legislative restrictions on its use in animal nutrition (EU Regulation No. 999/2001). The aim of this work was to study the digestibility of nutrients and the energy value of hydrolysed feather meal in commercial broiler chickens and young quails for meat production. For the experiment, 4 heads of typical Cobb-500 cross chickens aged 24 days (average body weight 1400.8 g) and 4 young Pharaoh quails aged 30 days (average body weight 225.0 g) were selected. The birds were kept in individual cages using typical compound feeds for broiler chickens and young quails. The experiment to study feed digestibility was carried out according to a differentiated scheme in two consecutive cycles lasting 7 days; the preliminary and transitional periods were 3 days each. The digestibility of feather meal was studied by replacing 10% of the main diet with the studied flour (5%). Feather meal, produced by the technology of hydrothermal hydrolysis with the influence of an electromagnetic field, contained 75.6% crude protein, 1.9% crude fibre, 1.9% crude fat, and 1.4% NFE. In experiments on young quails, the digestibility coefficient of crude protein was determined at 79.7 ± 9.48% with an average level of variation (23.7%). The calculated digestibility coefficients of crude fat (72.3 ± 15.80%, CV 30.9%), crude fibre (20.3 ± 7.35%, CV 51.08%) and organic matter (62.1 ± 16.13%, CV 44.9%) are less reliable due to the high variation in the values. The apparent digestibility coefficients of nutrients from hydrolysed feather meal, determined in experiments on broiler chickens, in most cases exceeded the 0–100% range. The calculated value of the apparent metabolizable energy (young quails) in hydrolysed feather meal is 11.38 MJ/kg.

Keywords: broilers, quails, hydrolysed feather meal, protein, digestibility, metabolizable energy, nutrients.

OTCHENASHKO V.


CHERNYSH V. https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1483-1982


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BTF №2 2025