The apparent prececal and fecal crude protein digestibility and amino acid absorption of coarse animal feed in fattening pigs

Digestibility experiments were made with nearly full-grown female fattening pigs supplied with large-scale T-cannulae implanted in the distal ileum to collect the digesta in order to test 11, mainly dried and pelleted, kinds of forage plants (9 samples of lucerne cut at different times as well as green rye and whole plants of maize) as supplements to a basic diet. All samples were analysed to their content of HCl-insoluble ash as marker and their content of amino acids (AA). The calculation of the apparent precaecal and faecal crude protein (CP) digestibility and of the absorption values of the essential AA lysine, methionine, cystine, isoleucine, threonine and tryptophan as well as of glutamic acid was carried out according to the difference method. CP digestibility of the experimental diets was precaecally reduced by 5 to 20 and faecally by 3 to 13 units by supplements of at least 25% of the dry matter; for some of the AA the reduction was even bigger and dispersion between the values of the individual animals was essentially increased in comparison with the basic ration. Faecally, the precaecal differences of CP digestibility and AA absorption caused by the various alfalfa samples, are largely blurred. The CP and AA digestibility of the forage plants partly showed very big individual differences between the animals. Precaecally, a CP digestibility of more than 48% could not be ascertained. Similarly to the lysine content, precaecal lysine absorption from the kinds of roughage showed big differences. Whereas the absorption values for methionine of between 60 and 87% were relatively high, those for cystine were mostly very low, often in the negative range. This underlines that normal digestion processes are strongly influenced by high supplements of forage plants so that the constancy of the digestibility of the basic ration must be doubted under these conditions. The bacterial processes in the large intestine greatly level out the differences found precaecally between the various kinds of feedstuffs. The faecal digestibility and absorption values were considerably above those measured precaecally; methionine digestibility only was mostly considerably diminished in comparison with precaecal values due to synthesis in the large intestine. A significant positive correlation could be calculated between the lysine content of the 9 alfalfa samples (4.0 to 6.6 g/16 g N) and the apparent precaecal values of lysine absorption (2.2 to 67.6%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)