The availability of lysine in diets for pigs: comparative methodology

Four experiments were conducted to compare different methods for estimating the availability of lysine in protein feeds. The same feeds were used in all experiments. In the first experiment the apparent digestibility of lysine to the ileum of growing pigs was found to be 0.92, 0.69, 0.73, 0.85, 0.84 and 0.97 for soya-bean meal, cottonseed meal 1, cottonseed meal 2, meat meal, sunflower meal and skim milk respectively. In the second experiment the utilization of lysine (relative to free lysine) for weight gain, as measured in weaner pigs, was found to be 0.68, 0.73, 0.81, 0.86 and 1.00 for cottonseed meal 1, cottonseed meal 2, meat meal, sunflower meal and skim milk respectively. In Expt 3 diets were formulated to contain soya-bean meal, sunflower meal or cottonseed meal 2 with the same available lysine content from the measurements made in Expts 1 and 2. The feed conversion ratios of weaner pigs given these diets were similar for the three sources of protein when the values were adjusted for the differences in digestible dry matter intake. In the fourth experiment isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets were formulated with increasing amounts of lysine from synthetic lysine or cottonseed meal 2. The diets were given to weaner pigs and resulted in a curvilinear response to lysine particularly for the cottonseed meal, so that the availability of lysine in cottonseed meal was similar to that of synthetic lysine at low lysine intakes and much lower than synthetic lysine at higher lysine intakes. Possible reasons for the curvilinear responses are discussed.