Nutritive value of wheat and maize distillers dried grains with solubles in poultry

Abstract

The development of bioethanol production from cereals has also increasedthe use of associated by-products called distillers driedgrains with solubles (DDGS) for ruminants and also for non ruminant animals. The purpose of this review was to summarize the dataavailable in order to consider their introduction into poultry diets. Average nutrient composition and energy and amino acid valuesof wheat and maize DDGS are proposed. The results suggest an important variability for these parameters, especially for lysine contentand lysine digestibility in relation to Maillard reactions during the drying process that cause a decrease in the luminance (L).Consequently, samples with a low L value (< 50 and < 30 for wheat and maize DDGS, respectively) have a low lysine content in theircrude protein (N x 6.25) and this lysine is poorly digestible. Energy digestibility or ME content variability of wheat and maize DDGSare also correlated with colour but most of the variability is related with crude fat and dietary fibre variations. Nevertheless, ourreview suggests that wheat or maize DDGS can be considered as potential sources of energy and protein for poultry feeds at differentstages and for different categories without any detrimental effect on performance as long as the nutritional characteristics ofDDGS are taken into account in the formulation of diets.