Comparative ileal amino acid digestibility of distillers' grains for growing pigs

The objective of the experiment reported here was to investigate and compare the amino acid (AA) digestibility of distillers' dried grains (DDG), distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS), high protein distillers' dried grains (HP-DDG), and high protein distillers' dried grains with solubles (HP-DDGS) in growing pigs. Five semi-purified diets consisting of DDG, DDGS, HP-DDG, HP-DDGS, and nitrogen-free diet (NFD) were fed to pigs fitted with simple T-cannula for 5 observations per diet. Endogenous losses of AA at the terminal ileum of pigs that received the NFD were used to calculate standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of AA from apparent ileal digestibility (AID) of AA. The AID of Lys in DDGS was lower (P < 0.05) than that in DDG, which was also lower (P < 0.05) than that in HP-DDG. There were no differences in AID of Met among DDG, DDGS and HP-DDGS, but was greater (P < 0.05) in HP-DDG than in DDG or DDGS. The AID of Thr in HP-DDG was greater (P < 0.05) than that in DDGS but not different from that in DDG or HP-DDGS. The branched-chain AA Ile and Leu had greater (P < 0.05) AID in HP-DDG than in DDG, DDGS or HP-DDGS, and there was no difference among DDG, DDGS, and HP-DDGS. The AID of Trp in DDG and DDGS or HP-DDG and HP-DDGS were not different, but the AID of Trp in HP-DDGS was greater (P < 0.05) than that of DDGS. The greatest SID of the indispensable AA was in HP-DDG. Except for Arg and Lys in which DDG had greater (P < 0.05) digestibility, there was no difference between DDG and DDGS in the SID of the indispensable AA. The SID of Lys in DDG was greater (P < 0.05) than that of DDGS but there was no difference between that of DDG and HP-DDGS. Only His, Ile, and Met had lower (P < 0.05) SID in HP-DDGS than HP-DDG within the indispensable AA. The SID of Ala, Asp, Cys, Glu, Gly, Ser and Tyr were lower (P < 0.05) in DDGS than in HP-DDG. There SID of dispensable AA in DDG was not different from that of HP-DDGS. The current study provided apparent and standardized ileal amino acids digestibility values for traditional and high-protein corn distillers' dried grains coproducts for use in formulating swine diets. Amino acid digestibility was generally higher in HP-DDG than in other tested co-products of the dry grind processing of corn for ethanol. (C) 2016, Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).