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Citation of this paper

Effect of breed and cecectomy on apparent amino acid digestibility in ducks fed diets containing brewers’ spent grains

Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu1

College of Applied Biology, Tay Do University, Can Tho City, Vietnam
ntkdong@ctu.edu.vn
1 College of Agriculture, Cantho University, Can Tho City, Vietnam

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the apparent total tract nutrient digestibility in normal and cecectomised ducks fed brewers’ grains (BG). One hundred forty four ducks was arranged in a factorial design. The first factor was breed (crossbred Super-Meat and Muscovy ducks); the second was cecectomised versus and intact digestive tract; and the third was diet (Control of lbroken rice and fish meal versus broken rice and brewers’grains). The Muscovy ducks exhibited higher apparent digestibility than crossbred Super Meat. There were no differences in digestibility between cecetomised or intact ducks. There was no difference in apparent excreta digestibility of any amino acid between breeds. There were inconsistent differences in digestibility of individual amino acids between cecectomised and intact birds, but in majority digestibility was found higher in intact birds. Digestibility of amino acids in ducks fed BG100 was equal or lower than in ducks fed the other diets. In conclusion the Muscovies digested DM superior to crossbred Super Meat ducks but there were no differences in digestibility of individual amino acids. For most individual amino acid digestibility was found higher in intact ducks. Dietary inclusion of about 50 % brewers’ grains seems to give good digestibility properties.

Key words: crossbred Super-meat duck, Muscovy ducks, digestibility, brewers’ grains, amino acids


Introduction

Regional deficits of conventional protein sources for poultry in the tropics have stimulated a research for alternative industrial by-products. The potential of brewers’ grains from beer production was recognized in this context, due to its relatively high crude protein content and other nutrients. Feeding brewers’ grains to growing ducks gave good performance and high profit due to its high CP content and low price (Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Brian 2003; Pham Tan Nha et al 2013). However, its availability of nutrients and especially essential amino acids has not been investigated. Nguyen Thuy Linh (2018) also reported that raising Muscovy ducks gave more profit than the common ones due to better nutrient utilization. Many methods have been developed to investigate the quality of various proteins, as well as to determine the digestibility of amino acids of poultry feeds by excreta analysis (Janssen et al. 1977; Adeola, 2005). Measurements based on collection of digesta from the terminal ileum of killed chickens should provide reliable data on amino acid digestibility because further intestinal hydrolysis and absorption of amino acids is unlikely to occur past this point (Huang et al 2005; Szczurek 2010; Bandegan et al 2011 and Kasprzak 2016). But this technique is laborious and expensive.

Austic (1983) has suggested that amino acid digestibility should be determined with cecectomised birds. Since the ceca comprise the major part of the hindgut area in poultry, the cecectomised bird provides a good model for measuring AA digestibility under conditions of reduced microbial influence (Johnson, 1992; Babinszky et al 2006; Adedokun et al 2009; Kinh 2013, Nguyen Dong Hai and Nguyen Thi Kim Dong 2016). Moreover, cecectomy has several advantages compared with ileal digesta collection. Cecectomy is a much simpler surgical procedure than the implantation of ileal cannular. Cecectomised birds can be maintained much more easily than ileal-cannular. Studies evaluating amino acid digestibility of feed ingredients using cecectomised chickens are numerous (Payne et al 1971; Parsons, 1985; Johns et al 1986; and Green et al 1987a,b). Ragland et al. (1999) performed cecectomies on ducks and compared the amino acid digestibility in the cecectomized ducks with that of intact ducks. Amino acid digestibility studies using intact ducks and excreta collection have been conducted by Hong et al. (2001) and Jamroz et al. (2001), but very few studies employing cecectomised ducks have been reported. The purpose of the present research was to compare total tract apparent nutrient and amino acid digestibility values of brewers’ grains by using intact and cecectomised crossbred Super-Meat and Muscovy ducks.


Materials and methods

Birds and experimental design

This study was conducted at the Can Tho University farm and laboratory from April to October in 2019. A total of 144 crossbred Super-Meat and crossbred Muscovy ducks, 12 weeks of age, with average live weights being 2.0 kg and 2.20 kg, respectively were used. Super-Meat ducks are also called common ducks, produced by male Super-Meat crossed with female crosses between Cherry Valley and Pekin ducks. Crossbred Muscovies originates from male French Muscovy crossed with female local Muscovy). Seventy two intact and 72 cecectomised birds were allotted in a factorial design with three factors; breed, method (cecectomised, intact) and three diets. There were 3 replicates of 4 ducks (sexual balanced) making up the experimental units.

Cecectomy procedure

The cecectomy procedure described by Payne et al. (1971), Rezvani et al. (2007) and Hai and Dong (2016) for chickens was adapted and utilized in the present study. Ducks selected to undergo the cecectomy procedure were deprived of feed for 24 h and water for approximately 12 h. General anesthesia was employed using ketamin. Prior to preparation of ducks for surgery, penicillin procaine was administered subcutaneously. After achieving a surgical plane of anesthesia, the surgical site was prepared by plucking a zone of feathers in the area corresponding to the left flank to expose the underlying skin. The exposed skin was then sanitized with betadine scrub. A horizontal skin incision into the abdomen until the ceca could be seen was made. Care was taken to avoid incising the abdominal air sacs. The body of each cecum was freed from its ligamentous attachment by blunt dissection of the ileocecal ligament. Vessels within the ileocecal ligament were ligated with 2-0 chromic gut absorbable suture to prevent hemorhage postsurgery. The ceca were ligated with 2-0 chromic gut absorbable suture most proximal to the ileal junction and removed. The ceca stumps and abdomen were lavaged with saline solution and the body wall closed in three layers: muscular, subcuticular, and skin. Immediately after completion of procedure, penicillin procaine was administered subcutaneously to maintain postoperative antibiotic blood levels. Ducks were allowed access to water upon recovery from anesthesia and allowed ad libitum access to feed 18 to 24 h post surgery. Nonabsorbable skin sutures were removed 14-day post surgery.

Housing and management

In the trial, 144 ducks were distributed at random to 36 wire metabolism cages (0.5x 0.8x 0.6m) with the same mean weight per cage. Each cage was provided with a drinker and feeder and a plastic tray was placed under the cage for total collection of excreta. The cages were placed in a ventilated room with controlled light (24 h light/day) to allow eating at night. The cages, drinkers, feeders and plastic trays were cleaned daily in the morning.

Diets and feeding

Broken rice (BR) and fish meal (FM) used in the different diets throughout the experiments originated from the same batches. Brewers’ grains (BG) was bought on an occasion at the local brewery in the city, and consisted of approximately 60% barley grains residues and 40% broken rice residues, with yeast. It was dried under sunlight, and then dried by oven at 55-60 0C, after that ground. A premix - mineral vitamin (0.3%) and chromic oxide (0.3 %) (Kim et al 2012; Foltyn et al. (2015) and Han et al. (2017) were carefully mixed with other feed ingredients for each diet before feeding occasion. The feed ingredient and chemical composition of the experimental diets is shown in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively. The three diets included the basal diet (CTRL) with 80% BR and 20% FM, the BG50 diet with 50% BR and 50% BG and the BG100 which consisted of only BG, except 0.3 vitamin and trace element mixture which was added to all diets.

The experimental time lasted 19 days divided in three periods. In a 7-day feed introduction period, birds were introduced to the experimental diets gradually before the trial started. This was followed by a 7-day adaptation and a 5-day excreta collection period. The birds were fed in groups of four and four times per day (8:00, 13:00, 17:00 and 21:00 h) to minimize spillage. In the 7-day adaptation period the ducks were fed ad libitum to measure the actual feed intake. However, during the collection period, the feeding level was set slightly below the feed intake (90%) in the adaptation period in order to limit feed refusals (Ho Le Huynh Chau 2014). Water was also available to birds at all times in plastic containers, but in small amounts in order to allow the birds to consume any feed left in the drinkers.

Table 1. Ingredient composition of the experimental diets (% air dry basis)

Item

Diet1

CTRL

BG50

BG100

Broken rice (BR)

80

50

0

Fish meal (FM)

20

0

0

Brewers’ grains (BG)

0

50

100

Vitamin-mineral premix2

0.3

0.3

0.3

1 CTRL, BG50, BG100: 0, 50 and 100% BG. 2 Vitamin- mineral premix contained: vitamin A, 50,000 IU/100g;vitamin D3, 80,000 IU/100g, vitamin E, 50 IU/100g; vitamin K, 0.1%; vitamin B1, 0.03%, vitamin B2, 0.2%, B12, 0.0006%; Calcium carbonate, 0.5%; Phospho, 0.05%; Zn, 1.6%; Cu, 0.32%; Mn, 2.56%; I, 0.032%; Co, 0.016%, Se, 0.0064%



Table 2. Chemical composition of the feed ingredients (% DM)

Item

Broken rice

Fish meal

Brewers’ grains

DM

86.0

86.4

87.3

OM

99.7

65.2

97.5

CP

9.65

44.0

31.9

EE

1.77

11.4

10.6

NFE

87.6

8.81

43.3

CF

0.70

0.94

11.7

NDF

6.39

1.61

39.2

ADF

2.32

1.13

21.9

Ash

0.27

34.8

2.54

Ca

0.14

5.27

0.34

P

0.22

2.02

0.52

ME, MJ/kg

14.4

11.2

12.0

DM: dry matter, OM: organic matter, CP: crude protein, EE: ether extract, NFE: nitrogen free extract, CF: crude fibre, NDF: neutral detergent fiber, ADF: acid detergent fiber and ME: Metabolizable energy (calculated)



Table 3. Chemical composition of the experimental diets (% DM)

Item

Diet

CTRL

BG50

BG100

DM

86.1

86.6

87.3

OM

92.8

98.5

97.5

CP

16.5

20.8

31.9

EE

3.70

6.20

10.6

NFE

71.9

65.4

43.3

CF

0.75

6.19

11.7

NDF

5.4

22.8

39.2

ADF

2.10

12.1

21.9

Ash

7.20

1.40

2.50

Ca

1.17

2.71

0.34

P

0.58

1.12

0.52

ME, MJ/ kg DM

13.8

13.2

12.0



Table 4. Amino acid composition of the feed ingredients and the experimental diets (g per 100g DM)

Item

Diet1

Feed ingredients

CTRL*

BG50*

BG100*

BR

FM

Essential amino acids (EAA)

Arginine

1.34

1.80

2.80

0.80

3.47

Isoleucine

0.92

1.15

1.87

0.43

2.89

Leucine

1.28

2.08

3.37

0.78

3.28

Lysine

1.08

0.80

1.32

0.27

4.29

Met + cystine

0.59

0.56

0.83

0.28

1.81

Histidine

0.48

0.29

0.37

0.22

1.52

Phenylalanine

0.89

1.24

1.94

0.54

2.26

Threonine

0.97

0.91

1.34

0.48

2.95

Tyrosine

0.69

1.11

1.73

0.50

1.47

Valine

0.87

1.24

2.01

0.47

2.51

Total EAA

9.11

11.18

17.58

4.77

26.5

Non- essential amino acids (NEAA)

Alanine

1.20

1.39

2.19

0.59

3.64

Aspartic acid

1.16

1.59

2.76

0.42

4.13

Glutamic acid

1.83

2.98

5.06

0.91

5.51

Glycine

0.78

0.82

1.15

0.49

1.95

Proline

1.00

1.57

2.87

0.27

3.90

Serine

0.79

1.04

1.66

0.42

2.27

Sum of amino acids (SAA)

15.87

20.57

33.27

7.87

47.9

EAA : SAA

0.57

0.54

0.53

0.61

0.55

1See Table 1, * Values were calculated based on amino acids of feed ingredients

Sampling procedure for excreta

During the last 5-day collection period, dietary samples were taken, and total collection of excreta was carried out for the calculation of the actual feed and nutrient consumption and for chemical analyses. Excreta were quantitatively collected three times daily at 7:00 h, 13:00 h and 19:00 h, then frozen at - 200C (Kim et al 2012). Care was taken to avoid contamination from feathers, scales and debris. Before analysis, excreta were thawed, then pooled within pens, and dried for 24 h at 55-600C in an oven (Jorgensen et al 1984; Karn, 1991). The dried excreta were weighed, homogenized, and ground to pass through a 0.5 mm sieve and representative samples were taken and stored in airtight plastic containers at 40C for subsequent analyses (Ravindran et al 1999).

Chemical analyses

Samples of BR, FM, BG, diets, excreta were analyzed for dry matter (DM), Nitrogen (N), crude protein (CP) (N x 6.25), ether extract (EE), ash, calcium and phosphorus by standard AOAC methods (AOAC, 1990). Analyses of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) were also done, following the procedure of Goering and Van Soest (1991). The feeds were also analyzed for GE, and ME contents were calculated from these (ME= GE, MJ/kg analyzed x coefficient ME/GE) according to the Standard Tables of Feed Composition in Japan (1995). Representative samples of BR, FM and BG and excreta were analyzed for amino acids by HPLC (AOAC 2000). Diets and excreta were also analyzed for Cr2O3 content (Masaaki Takemasa, 1992).

Measurements taken

In trial, birds were weighed individually at the beginning of the experiment. Daily feed intakes were calculated according to the total feed consumption of four ducks per pen. Excreta were quantitatively collected.

Calculations

Apparent excreta amino acid digestibilities were calculated using Cr2O3 as indigestible marker (Ravindran et al 1999 and Bryden et al 2009) as shown below:

Where (AA/ Cr2O3)d = ratio of amino acid to indigestible marker in diet

(AA/ Cr2O3)e = ratio of amino acid to indigestible marker in excreta.

Statistical analysis

The data were analyzed variance using ANOVA General Linear Model procedure of Minitab Reference Manual Release 16.1.0 (2010). The model used was as follows:

Yijk = µ + Bi + Tj + Dk + (BT) ij + (BD)ik + (TD)jk + ε ijk where,

Yijk is a dependent variable, µ is the overall mean, B i breed effect, Tj type effect, Dk dietary treatment effect, (BT)ij, interaction effect between breed and type, (BD)ik, interraction effect between breed and treatment, (TD)jk, interaction effect between type and treatment, εijk is the residual error. When the F-test was significant at P<0.05, paired comparisons were performed using Tukey“s procedure (Minitab 2010). The overall mean values of amino acids of the experimental model were compared using the paired T-test.


Results and discussion

Chemical composition of feed ingredients and experimental diets

The chemical composition of feed ingredients and diets is shown in Table 2 and Table 3. The contents of CP, CF, NDF and ADF of BG are in a range of brewer grains reported by DePeter et al. (2000); Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu (2013); Lynch et al. (2016). The CP content of BG is lower and NDF and ADF contents are higher than in the FM used. This resulted in the contents of CP and NDF, ADF were the highest on the BG100 diet, and the lowest on the basal diet (CTRL).

Dry matter and nutrient intakes

Table 5. Dry matter and nutrient intakes of ducks (g/bird) fed diets with different level of brewers’ grains

Breed (B)

Type (T)

Diet1 (D)

SEM/p

SD

MD

CEC

INT

CTRL

BG50

BG100

B

T

D

DM

122

97.8

109

110

82.9a

120b

127b

7.66/0.04

7.66/ns

9.39/0.001

OM

118

94.0

106

106

75.8a

119b

123b

7.15/0.03

7.15/ns

8.76/0.01

CP

28.4

22.5

25.1

25.8

14.6a

23.3b

38.5c

1.59/0.021

1.59/ns

1.94/0.001

EE

7.28

5.78

6.43

6.64

2.56a

6.09b

10.9c

0.37/0.013

0.37/ns

0.46/0.001

NFE

71.4

57.4

64.8

64.0

59.6ab

78.5a

55.2b

5.09/ns

5.09/ns

6.23/0.043

CF

8.53

6.77

7.51

7.79

0.62a

7.43b

14.9c

0.43/0.012

0.43/ns

0.52/0.001

NDF

33.5

30.6

30.7

33.4

5.30a

30.4b

60.5c

1.22/ns

1.22/ns

0.49/0.001

ADF

14.9

11.8

13.1

13.6

1.49a

12.6b

26.0c

0.71/0.009

0.71/ns

0.87/0.001

ME, MJ/ d

1.58

1.26

1.42

1.42

1.30

1.47

1.49

0.10/0.048

0.10/ns

0.13/ns

1 See Table 1. SD: Crossbred Super-Meat duck, MD: Muscovy duck; CEC: Caecectomized, INT: intact ns: no significant difference; a.b.c Means with different superscripts within rows are significantly different (P<0.05)

Intakes of most nutrients were higher in the crossbred Super-Meat ducks ( P<0.05) than in the Muscovies. However, there were no differences between cecectomized and intact birds. The higher intakes of DM and OM of birds given BG50 and BG100 diets (P<0.01), might be due to the high fiber and the lower ME contents in the BG, resulting in similar ME intakes. This is in accordance with previous duck studies of Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Ogle (2003) and with results of Onifade et al. (1998) in experiments with broilers.

Table 6. Apparent total tract digestibility (%) of nutrients and N-retention of ducks fed diets with different levels of brewery waste

Breed (B)

Type (T)

Diet1 (D)

P value

CD

MD

CEC

INT

CTRL

BRW50

BRW100

B

T

D

DM

75.3

81.9

76.1

81.1

92.3a

83.0a

60.5b

2.18/0.04

2.18/ns

2.67/0.001

OM

76.6

82.9

77.6

81.9

93.3a

83.9a

62.0b

2.08/0.05

2.08/ns

2.55/0.001

EE

76.8

85.3

83.1

79.1

85.7

81.2

76.3

2.05/0.01

2.05/ns

2.51/0.056

NFE

73.9

78.2

75.2

76.9

86.6a

78.2a

63.3b

2.05/ns

2.05/ns

2.52/0.001

NDF

51.6

65.1

54.6

61.6

61.7

62.7

49.9

4.51/0.048

4.51/ns

5.53/ns

ADF

36.8

46.4

40.6

42.6

44.8

48.4

41.5

5.67/ns

5.67/ns

6.95/ns

Nret, (g/b/d)

2.01

2.10

1.90

2.21

1.63

2.03

2.50

0.25/ns

0.25/ns

0.31/ns

Nret /Nint, (%)

49.3

60.4

52.7

57.0

69.3a

54.2ab

41.1b

4.07/0.07

4.07/ns

4.99/0.005

The result of DM intake in a current study is within a range (89.4 – 96.2 g/day/bird) of amino acid digestibility experiment on Muscovy ducks presented by Nguyen Thuy Linh (2018). Due to high concentrations of CP, EE, CF, NDF and ADF in BRW, the intakes of these components considerably increased, and the highest values on the BRW100 diet (P<0.001) (Table 5). There were no interaction effects on nutrient intakes between breed, measurement technique and diet in the present study (P<0.05)./p>

Total tract digestibility of nutrients and nitrogen retention

The Muscovy ducks showed higher digestibility coefficients of DM and OM than the crossbred Super-Meat birds (P<0.05). The digestibility of all nutrients were not significantly different between intact and cecectomised birds (P>0.05). By including BG in the diets, the DM and OM digestibility reduced compared with the basal diet (CTRL) and the lowest values (P<0.05) were found for ducks fed BG only (BG100 diet) (Table 6). This could be explained that the high fibre content in BG. These results are consistent with the findings of El Beeli et al. (2002), who described a negative linear relationship between crude fibre content and DM digestibility in duck diets. Also, the mass of the dietary fibre might be expected to influence negatively the peristaltic activity (Jamoz et al 2001). The NFE, EE and NDF digestibilities of the Muscovy ducks were significantly higher (P<0.05) than the crossbred Super-Meat ducks. This could be explained that the crossbred Muscovy ducks traditionally raised at the backyards have consumed more roughages in diets with higher adapted digestion to fiber sources and poor quality diets as compared to the concentrate-fed crossbred super meat ducks.

The digestibility of EE and NFE gradually depressed from the basal (CTRL) to BG diets and being least on the BG100 diet (P<0.056), probably due to fibre effects. This is in agreement with Jorgensen et al. (1996) who reported that the digestibility of all nutrients decreased with increasing fibre level in the diet. The results of DM, OM, EE and ADF digestibility coefficients in this study are within ranges of those on local Muscovy ducks reported by Nguyen Thuy Linh (2018).

The results showed that the nitrogen retention (Nret) was not influenced by any of the treatment factors. However, the values had tendency to increase with including the BG in diets (BG50 and BG100 diets). Increasing BG feeding implied increased protein feeding, which markedly reduced the N efficiency. The Nret/Nint ratio was significantly reduced (P< 0.05) among the treatments with the lowest value for the BG100 treatment. The interaction effects on nutrient digestibilities between breed, measurement technique and diet were not found in the current study.

Apparent excreta digestibility of amino acids

Table 7. Apparent excreta digestibility of amino acids of ducks fed diets with different levels of brewers’ grains

Breed (B)

Type (T)

Diet1 (D)

P value

SD

MD

CEC

INT

CTRL

BG50

BG100

B

T

D

Essential amino acids (EAA)

Arginine

0.81

0.84

0.81

0.85

0.86a

0.83ab

0.79b

ns

*

**

Isoleucine

0.65

0.67

0.64

0.69

0.70a

0.68a

0.60b

ns

**

***

Leucine

0.84

0.83

0.85

0.82

0.85

0.84

0.81

ns

ns

ns

Lysine

0.79

0.81

0.78

0.83

0.85a

0.78b

0.77b

ns

**

***

Met + cys

0.84

0.83

0.85

0.81

0.86a

0.84ab

0.80b

ns

*

*

Histidine

0.68

0.71

0.67

0.71

0.71

0.69

0.68

ns

ns

ns

Phenylalanine

0.81

0.83

0.84

0.80

0.85a

0.82ab

0.79b

ns

ns

*

Threonine

0.67

0.66

0.64

0.69

0.71a

0.65ab

0.63b

ns

*

*

Tyrosine

0.79

0.78

0.80

0.77

0.81a

0.78ab

0.76b

ns

*

*

Valine

0.79

0.80

0.81

0.78

0.81

0.80

0.78

ns

ns

ns

Non-essential amino acids (NEAA)

Alanine

0.81

0.79

0.78

0.82

0.82

0.79

0.79

ns

*

ns

Aspartic acid

0.70

0.73

0.68

0.75

0.75 a

0.73a

0.67b

ns

**

**

Glutamic acid

0.86

0.88

0.84

0.90

0.91a

0.87ab

0.83b

ns

***

***

Glycine

0.66

0.70

0.63

0.73

0.72a

0.68ab

0.64b

ns

***

**

Proline

0.67

0.63

0.60

0.70

0.70a

0.67a

0.58b

ns

***

**

Serine

0.75

0.80

0.76

0.80

0.80

0.78

0.75

ns

ns

ns

Overall mean

0.75

0.76

0.75

0.78

0.79a

0.76b

0.73c

ns

*

***

ns: no significant difference, * significant difference (P<0.05), ** significant difference (P<0.01), *** significant difference (P<0.001).
a.b Means with different superscripts within rows are significantly different (P<0.05)

In the apparent excreta digestibility was found no significant difference between crossbred Super-Meat and Muscovy ducks for any amino acids (Table 7). Significant differences between intact and cecectomised birds were noted for 11 out of the total of 16 amino acids determined, in which nine digestibilities were higher in intact birds and two higher in cecectomized birds. Thus, cecectomised ducks had lower digestibility coefficients of arginine, isoleucine, lysine, threonine, alanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine and proline (P<0.05) than those of the intact birds. The results are in agreement with those reported by others (Payne et al 1968; Johns et al 1986; Hai and Dong 2016) that cecectomy was associated with a substantial reduction in the digestibility of several AA. The results of our work with ducks support the opinion of Johnson (1992), Ragland et al. (1999) and Leme et al. (2019) that cecectomized poultry should be used in amino acid digestibility studies to prevent overestimation of digestibility of amino acids in feedstuffs. Also, Green (1988) found a consistent increase in the quantity of endogenous AA voided each day by cecectomised adult cockerels compared with intact birds. This would tend to depress the apparent digestibility of dietary protein and amino acids.

The digestibility values of most amino acids were significantly ( P<0.05) lower for the BG100 diet (Table 7), probably due to higher intake of CF, NDF and ADF. This is consistent with findings that increasing concentration of dietary fiber resulted in decreased AA digestibilities in birds and geese (Sarmiento-Franco et al 2003) and Yang et al. (2016), due to rate of passage of digesta faster (Onifade et al 1998).

Our results indicated that the apparent excreta digestibilities of leucine, histidine, phenylalanine, valine, alanine, and serine were closely resembled between the bird type and among treatment groups. The interaction effects among the treatments of the experiment were not found (P>0.05). Within individual AA, the order of glutamic acid, arginine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, lysine and valine appeared digested to a considerably greater extent than that of the remainders for birds type as well as dietary treatments, whereas proline, isoleucine, threonine, glycine, histidine and aspartic acid exhibited rather poorly digested. Similar findings reported by Parsons (1985) that AA digestibility of distillers“dried grains with solubles measured by cecectomised and intact roosters indicated some AA had the higher digestibility such as leucine, methionine, glutamic acid, tyrosine and phenylalanine, but several AA had the lower values (lysine, aspartic acid and threonine). The highest values of glutamic acid, arginine, leucine and methionine and the lowest values of proline, isoleucine, threonine, glycine, histidine and aspartic acid were observed in breed, type and diet. The low digestibility of threonine, proline and isoleucine was also found in cecectomised birds by Ragland et al. (1999) and Hong et al. (2001). The AA digestibility coefficients in present study are closed or slightly lower to those of a study on Muscovy ducks fed concentrates reported by Nguyen Thuy Linh (2018) being 85.3-89.9%; 74.3-84.5% and 84.3-89.1% for lysine, methionine and glutamic, respectively. In general the results show that the overall mean apparent excreta digestibility values of all AA were closed between Muscovy and crossbred Super-Meat ducks. Intact birds had higher digestibility values of most AA than cecectomy (P<0.05), except for methionine and tyrosine. There was a markable difference of overall AA digestibilities among diets, and the lower value on the BG100 diet ( P<0.001).


Conclusions

In conclusion the crossbred Muscovies had higher digestibilities of DM, OM, EE and NDF than those of the crossbred Super-Meat ducks. The total tract apparent digestibility of most nutrients was not influenced by cecetomised birds. However, cecectomised birds had the lower excreta digestibility of most AA than the intact ducks. BG seems relatively to high digestibility values of most nutrients and AA with inclusion by 50% in the diets. This observation could warrant further investigation into the effects of cecectomised ducks on AA digestibility of other feedstuffs and by-products.


Acknowledgement

This research is funded in part by the Can Tho University Improvement Project VN14-P6, supported by a Japanese ODA loan. The Authors thank to the Dept. of Animal Sciences of College of Agriculrure, Can Tho University for facilitating the laboratory works of the experiment.


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