Studies of the Metabolizable Energy of Grain and Grain Products for Chickens

Abstract

PREVIOUS work reported from this laboratory compared metabolizable and productive (net) energy determinations with chicks and showed that metabolizable energy is the better measure (Hill and Anderson, 1958). The purpose of this paper is to report determinations of metabolizable energy values for a variety of grains and grain products for chickens based on the use of glucose as the reference substance. Only limited data on directly determined metabolizable energy values are available for poultry, and are contained in reports by Mitchell and Haines (1927), Fraps et al. (1940), Olsson (1950), Hainan (1951) and Carpenter and Clegg (1956). Metabolizable energy values have been computed from digestibility data for many feeding materials by Axelsson and Eriksson (1951) and Titus (1955). Digestibility determinations with avian species are subject to limitations of the methods used for chemical or physical preparation of fecal and urinary constituents during analysis, or the difficulties of using surgically altered …