Amino acid digestibility in housefly and black soldier fly prepupae by growing pigs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2020.114446Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Apparent ileal AA digestibility in housefly or black soldier fly meal are measured.

  • Coefficient of ileal standardized digestibility of AA in insects meal are measured.

  • Ileal digestibility of AA in housefly meal are higher than black soldier fly meal.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted with the objectives of determining the coefficient of ileal apparent digestibility (CIAD) and the coefficient of ileal standardized digestibility (CISD) of amino acids (AA) in housefly (HF) and black soldier fly (BSF) prepupae meal by growing pigs. Ten pigs fitted with a T-cannula in the distal ileum with an average initial body weight of 25.05 kg were housed individually in metabolism cages equipped with a feeder and a nipple drinker. The pigs were randomly assigned each to one of two diets formulated to contain 976.7 g/kg of HF or BSF as the sole source of nitrogen. A nitrogen-free (N-free) diet was also formulated to estimate the basal ileal endogenous loss (BEL) of AA. All experimental diets contained 2 g/kg titanium dioxide as an indigestible marker. The daily feed allowance was offered in three equal meals that were fed at 0830, 1400 and 1930 h. Each experimental period lasted for 7 days, the initial 4 d for diet acclimation, followed by 3 d for ileal digesta collection and the digesta samples were collected continuously for 12 h. The CIAD of all AA for HF and BSF are more than 0.726 and 0.641, respectively. The values for the CISD of all AA range from 0.870 to 1.608 and from 0.767 to 1.177 for HF and BSF, respectively. Moreover, the values for the CIAD of all AA in HF are greater (P < 0.05) than in BSF. The dispensable AA account for the most proportion of the endogenous fraction and the BEL of proline is the greatest. The values for the CISD of all AA except methionine and cysteine in HF are also greater (P < 0.05) than in BSF. It is concluded that the digestibility of all AA in HF is greater than in BSF in pig.

Introduction

The adequate amino acids (AA) content in diet is one of the most significant factors in formulating swine diets. Therefore, determining the digestibility of AA is important for accurate formulation to meet AA requirement of pigs. Generally, the AA digestibility is measured by the ileal digestibility assay (Gabert et al., 2001) and the standardized ileal digestibility (SID) assay is the most frequently used way to determine AA availability in feeding stuff in swine diets (Stein et al., 2007). In addition, researchers have reported that formulating swine diets using digestible AA is more efficient rather than total AA (Lee et al., 2017). Index method is used to measure the AA digestibility because it is very difficult to collect all of ileal digesta (Adeola, 2001).

Housefly (HF; Musaca domestica) can effectively be used as an alternative protein source for livestock such as poultry and fish (Zuidhof et al., 2003; Ogunji et al., 2007). Inaoka et al. (1999) reported that AA composition of HF was similar to fish meal and HF can partially replace the fish meal in broiler chicken feed. Hwangbo et al. (2009) also showed that HF maggots can effectively be used as feeding diets for broiler chickens. The larvae of black soldier fly (BSF; Hermetia illucens) can grow on very dense populations on organic wastes and transform organic wastes into valuable biomass (van Huis, 2013; Nguyen et al., 2015). There are some studies showed that BSF can be used as an alternative protein source for broiler quails, broilers, and European sea bass (De Marco et al., 2015; Cullere et al., 2016; Mwaniki et al., 2018; Mwaniki and Kiarie, 2019). The HF and BSF meal may also be a good feed resource for swine. It is important to determine the AA digestibility of protein source for using in feed formulation. To our knowledge, there is only one non-peer review report about AA digestibility of BSF for pigs (Kortelainen et al., 2014), and studies on the AA digestibility of HF for pigs have not been reported. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to determine digestibility coefficients of AA in HF and BSF fed to growing pigs.

Section snippets

Animals and housing

Ten Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire pigs (average initial body weight of 25.05 ± 0.93 kg) were used in this study to determine the coefficient of ileal apparent digestibility (CIAD) and coefficient of ileal standardized digestibility (CISD) of AA in HF and BSF. The pigs were surgically equipped with a simple T-cannulas in the distal ileum using procedures as described by Nyachoti et al. (2002). Following the surgery, pigs were housed individually in metabolism cages during the experiment period.

Results and discussion

The contents of DM, CP, EE and GE in HF and BSF diets are presented in Table 1. The HF has greater contents of CP than BSF, while BSF has greater contents of GE and EE than HF. The contents of AA in HF and BSF are presented in Table 2. The lysine, methionine and threonine in HF meal are 38.3, 14.4 and 23.2 g/kg, respectively. The contents of lysine, methionine and threonine in BSF are 25.4, 7.0 and 16.0 g/kg, respectively. The methione and cysteine are the least abundant AA in both HF and BSF.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the present study provides AA digestibility values for HF and BSF. The digestibility of all AA in HF is greater than in BSF. The values for the digestibility of AA in HF and BSF will be valuable in its routine incorporation in swine diets

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by Hunan Province’s Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone projects (2017XK2058), Hunan Province’s Strategic and Emerging Industrial Projects (2018GK4035), Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2017JJ1020).

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