Protein quality of various raw and rendered by-product meals commonly incorporated into companion animal diets

Several experiments were conducted to evaluate the protein quality of various raw and rendered animal by-product meals commonly used in companion animal diets. Six freeze-dried raw animal meals (beef lungs, pork lungs, sheep lungs, pork livers, oceanfish, chicken necks) and 3 rendered animal meals (lamb meal, regular ash poultry by-product meal, and low ash poultry by-product meal) were fed in chick assays to determine Lys and TSAA bioavailability, protein efficiency ratio (PER), and net protein ratio (NPR). Each experimental diet was offered to 4 replicates of 5 chicks per pen in all growth assays. Furthermore, each animal by-product meal was fed to mature White Leghorn roosters for determination of true AA digestibility. All freeze-dried, raw animal meals were offered to 5 replicate roosters, and all rendered animal meals were offered to 4 replicate roosters. Most raw animal meals exhibited moderate to high protein quality. Lysine bioavailabilities ranged from 86 to 107% and 70 to 99% for raw and rendered animal meals, respectively. Bioavailability of TSAA ranged from 64 to 99% and 61 to 78% for raw and rendered animal meals, respectively. The PER values ranged from 2.83 to 4.03 and 2.01 to 3.34 for raw and rendered animal meals, respectively. The NPR values ranged from 3.83 to 4.8 and 3.05 to 4.12 for raw and rendered animal meals, respectively. Despite a numeric increase in NPR vs. PER values, the overall ranking of animal meals remained similar. Lamb meal had the poorest PER and NPR values, and pork lungs had the greatest values. Total essential AA digestibility and total AA digestibility ranged from 93.6 to 96.7 and 90.3 to 95.5%, respectively, for raw animal meals and 84.0 to 87.7 and 79.2 to 84.8%, respectively, for rendered animal meals. Rendered animal meals generally had lower protein quality than raw animal meals, with lamb meal consistently having the poorest protein quality and pork livers having the greatest protein quality.