Standardised amino acid digestibility of wheat distillers' dried grains with solubles in force-fed cockerels

1. In recent years, policies encouraging the production of ethanol from maize or wheat have stimulated an increased production of distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS) for which the nutritional value for poultry is poorly described, especially in the case of wheat DDGS. 2. DDGS samples (19) were obtained from 7 plants in Europe from June to September 2007. Each sample was analysed for chemical composition and 10 representative samples were measured for amino acid (AA) content and their standardised digestibility (SDD) in caecectomised cockerels. Lightness score (L) of each DDGS was also measured. 3. Results indicated a rather stable crude protein content (327 to 392 g/kg DM) but the AA profile was variable between samples. Lysine (LYS) was the most affected AA with contents ranging between 0·83 and 3·01 g/100 g CP. In addition, only 0·76 of total LYS were free if estimated by the fluoro-dinitro-benzene procedure and 0·85 of total LYS were free if estimated by the furosine procedure. 4. The SDD of LYS was also highly variable (-0·04 to 0·71) with the lowest values observed for DDGS samples with a low LYS content in CP; these latter samples had also a high occurrence of Maillard reactions and low L values (<50). Consequently, both LYS content in CP (r = 0·63) and SDD of LYS (r = 0·64) values were positively related with L. 5. Our data indicate that LYS SDD can be accurately predicted from LYS content in CP according to a quadratic (R(2 )= 0·94) or a linear-plateau model (R(2 )= 0·90; breakpoint for 1·9 g/100 g lysine in CP and a 0.63 plateau SDD value).