Intestinal protein digestibility of by-products from biodiesel industry

The objective of this research was to determine intestinal protein digestibility (ID) of some biodiesel by-products in the form of cakes and the meals. Eight by-products were: cakes and meals of physic nut, turnip, lupine, cotton cake, cottonseed meal. The by-products were incubated in the rumen for 16 hours, were the undegradable rumen residues were submitted to enzymatic digestion with pepsin and pancreatin solution for the determination of ID. In the incubation residues the following was also determined: dry matter degradability (RD), rumen degradable protein (RDP) and rumen undegradable protein (RUP). The intestinal protein digestibility of biodiesel by-products ranged from 2.4 to 48.6%. All the by-products evaluated in this study were characterized as high protein sources and were considered high-RDP. The by-products presented low intestinal protein digestibility. The ID protein of biodiesel by-products was higher in the cakes than the meals. The by-products evaluated, the cottonseed cake and meal presented the highest ID coefficients.