Nutritional evaluation of new reduced oligosaccharide soybean meal in poultry

The nutritional values of a novel reduced-oligosaccharide soybean meal (SBM-RO) and conventional SBM (SBM-CV) were evaluated and compared in 4 experiments. The first experiment was a TMEn assay with conventional roosters. The second experiment was a precision-fed cecectomized rooster assay that was conducted to determine TMEn and amino acid (AA) digestibility. The third experiment was a standardized ileal AA digestibility assay, in which broiler chicks were fed semi-purified diets containing 20% protein (from only the test ingredient) for 17 to 21 d of age and ileal digesta were collected on d 21. The fourth experiment was a growth performance trial (7 to 20 d of age) where broiler chicks were fed corn-SBM diets (adequate in all AA) containing 38.84% SBM-RO or SBM-CV. The protein content (100% DM basis) of the SBM-CV and SBM-RO was 51.9 and 54.8%, respectively. The gross energy of the 2 SBM was similar. The TMEn values in both conventional roosters and cecectomized roosters were significantly higher (P < 0.05) for SBM-RO than for SBM-CV (difference was approximately 200 kcal/kg of DM). Amino acid digestibility in cecectomized roosters was not different between SBM-CV and SBM-RO, with the exception of Trp, Ala, Asp, and Cys (SBM-RO > SBM-CV, P < 0.05). No significant differences between the SBM were found for AA digestibility in the standardized ileal AA digestibility assay. In the growth performance trial (experiment 4), the corn-SBM diet containing SBM-RO yielded significantly higher feed efficiency than the diet containing SBM-CV (P < 0.001). The results indicated that the SBM-RO contains higher ME than the SBM-CV and that digestibility of AA in SBM-RO is similar to SBM-CV.