The apparent metabolisable energy and ileal amino digestibility of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) pre-pupae meal for broiler chickens

1. The main objective of this study was to investigate black soldier fly (BSF) pre-pupae (BSFP) meal compared to soybean meal by evaluating its nutritional composition, apparent metabolisable energy (AME), apparent ileal amino acid digestibility (AID), and standardised amino acid digestibility (SID).2. Two experiments were conducted to determine the AME and AID of the BSFP for broiler chickens. Experiment 1 was an AME assay wherein broilers were fed two experimental diets (maize-soybean meal basal diet and a test diet containing 250 g/kg BSFP meal) for 7 d from d 23 post-hatch. The AME of BSFP meal was calculated based on the difference between the AME values of basal and test diets. The AME and nitrogen-corrected AME were 18.2 and 16.7 MJ/kg of dry matter, respectively. In experiment 2, the ileal amino acid (AA) digestibility of BSFP meal was determined using 30-d-old broilers by the direct method, and the ileal digesta was collected on d 34.3. The standardised ileal digestibility coefficients of Lys, Met, Thr, Val, Try, Arg and average of all AA were determined to be 0.83, 0.89, 0.82, 0.82, 0.85, 0.87 and 0.82, respectively. The findings demonstrated that the BSFP meal is a good source of energy and digestible AA and is potentially a substitute for soybean meal in broiler diets.