Like other rendering by-products, poultry by-product meal is rich in protein, fat and minerals, and is a good source of essential amino acids for monogastric species.
Ruminants
Poultry offal meal is a suitable source of protein for ruminants Particularly, the heat treatment applied to poultry by-products during processing makes the final meal a valuable source of rumen undegraded proteins for ruminants.
Dairy cattle
Poultry by-product meal can be used as a protein supplement for dairy cows. Daily amounts of 0.5 to 0.7 kg have been recommended . Including up to 1 kg/day in a maize silage diet increased milk yield and improved milk composition . However, lower inclusion rates may be necessary due to palatability issues. The use of poultry by-product meal in prepartum diets is also possible and allows normal reproductive performance and milk production. It is also better to include poultry by-product meal in a total mixed ration rather than adding it to the diet.
Beef cattle and growing cattle
Poultry by-product meal fully replaced soybean meal (on a protein basis) in the diets of steers without negative effects on consumption or diet digestibility and with similar or higher results for daily gain and feed efficiency.
Adding poultry by-product meal in the diets of finishing steers increased metabolizable protein supply better than urea supplementation. The difference in protein efficiency is due to the amount of metabolizable methionine. However, when using poultry by-product meal, tryptophan may be the first limiting amino acid for steers.
In Holstein calves, supplementation with poultry by-product meal at 10% resulted in higher growth performance and economic efficiency.
Sheep
Poultry by-product meal was found to be a useful and cheaper protein substitute for soybean meal in rations for growing lambs. It improved daily gain without altering feed conversion efficiency, and decreased feed cost when added to whole chopped sugarcane-based diets . Including poultry by-product meal up to 10% in high-concentrate rations enhanced growth performances and feed efficiency and increased energy retention.
Pigs
Poultry by-product meal may be utilized similarly to meat meal in pig rations. It is generally palatable and can be feed to all classes of pigs without major problems. Its amount of digestible lysine (about 2.5% DM) is comparable to that of soybean meal . The amino acid composition is similar to that of meat meal or meat and bone meal, but of slightly lower quality than that of fish meal. The amino acid digestibility seems to be lower than for soybean meal, and quite variable according to the processing method
The DE and ME values of poultry meal vary from 16.3 to 18.5 MJ/kg and from 14.9 to 17.2 MJ/kg, respectively . The NE value of poultry meal can be calculated from ME values using a NE/ME ratio of 70%.
Little research has been done on the use of poultry by-product meal in pig feeding. In starter diets, 10% of poultry meal was used without a negative effect on growth performance For young pigs with a lower growth potential (less than 350 g/d on average from 10 to 45 kg BW), poultry meal replaced 100% of the protein component of the diet In a diet formulated from weaning to slaughter, up to 7.5% poultry meal was used with no adverse effect on growth . The inclusion of poultry meal as a sole protein source in growing-finishing diets decreased feed intake and growth when compared to a soybean meal-based diet Chicken offal meal replaced about 50% of soybean meal (14% of the diet as fed) for growing pigs without depressing performance or carcass characteristics ). Chicken offal meal also replaced 33% of fish meal in pig diets without depressing performance or carcass characteristics
In order to further reduce cost by decreasing the consumption of energy necessary during the rendering process, researchers have ensiled poultry by-products with promising results. Poultry offal ensiled with maize (30:60) and Lactobacillus acidophiluscan be included at up to 20% in growing-finishing diets with no deleterious effect on average daily gain.
Poultry
Poultry by-product meal can be used in poultry diets at up to 7 to 10% without impairing bird performance. However, diets containing poultry by-product meal should be formulated to take into account the fact that the digestibility of amino acids are lower than those of soybean meal (Bandegan et al., 2010)
When introduced at up to 4% in balanced broiler diets, performance was unchanged In previous experiments, the same results were observed when including poultry by-products up to 10% in broiler diets . In laying hen diets, poultry by-products have no detrimental effects on performance and egg quality up to an incorporation level of between 5% and 7.5%
Poultry by-products can be extruded with cereal grains, yielding an ingredient with a higher protein value than that of meat and bone meal.
Rabbits
Poultry by-product meal was included at up to 8% and completely replaced fish meal in the diets of broiler rabbits and angora rabbits. With an adequate diet formulation, taking in account the protein, fat and amino-acids content, up to 10% poultry by-product meal was included without impairing growth performance. At an inclusion level of 18%, chicken offals reduced growth compared to fish meal (27 vs. 30 g/d) but the economic result (cost/kg meat produced) was improved by 10% . As noted above, poultry by-product meal has a detrimental effect on pellet quality.
Fish
Recommended inclusion levels of poultry by-product meal for fish are in the 5-25% range with a mean use of 5-10%. Poultry by-product meal has one of the best overall amino acid profile of all the main by-products of the processing of land animals.
