Nutritive value of oat flour and oat bran

Oat flour, the by-product resulting from commercial production of oat bran, was analyzed to contain 7.7% moisture, 11% CP, 6% crude fat, 8.8% NDF, 1.56% ash (.10% Ca, .23% P), 4,265 kcal/kg GE, .41% lysine, .36% threonine, .17% tryptophan, .21% methionine and .34% cystine. Chick bioassays revealed that lysine and threonine were the first- and second-limiting amino acids in oat flour. Slope-ratio protein quality assessment indicated that the protein quality of oat flour was similar to that of dehulled soybean meal. True ME (corrected for N retention, i.e., TMEn) of oat flour for adult cockerels was 3,726 kcal/kg. A P bioavailability assay with chicks indicated that the P in oat flour was 59.7% bioavailable relative to a KH2PO4 standard. Oat bran was analyzed to contain 9.7% moisture, 15% CP, 6.2% crude fat, 19.2% NDF, 2.33% ash (.12% Ca, .41% P), 4,316 kcal/kg GE, .59% lysine, .47% threonine, .18% tryptophan, .24% methionine and .44% cystine. Protein quality assessment in chicks indicated that the protein quality of oat bran was similar to that of dehulled soybean meal. True MEn of oat bran was found to be 3,449 kcal/kg. Of the .41% total phosphorus in oat bran, 42.2% was bioavailable, relative to the KH2PO4 standard.