The experiment was carried out to determine the apparent and true ileal digestibility of amino acids from six different meat and bone meals. Twelvecrossbred swines, castrated males, averaging 52.5 ± 5.1 kg initial weight, were used. The animals were previously submitted to the simple T canula surgery implantation at the terminal ileum and, after twenty days of recovery period, they were allotted to a randomized blocks design, with six treatments, four replicates and one animal per experimental unit. At the end of the first two replicates, the treatments were assigned again to avoid that the same animal received the same diet in two serial replicates. The treatments consisted in a free protein diet based on sugar, starch, vegetable oil and rice peel, with the meat and bone meal as the only protein source. The apparent ileal digestibility coefficients of lysine, threonine and methionine, of the different meat and bone meals, ranged from 54.87 to 74.80; 62.62 to 81.19 and 72.35 to 85.46%, respectively, and the variation among the true ileal digestibility coefficients were from 57.00 to 76.08, 66.26 to 83.07, and 73.76 to 86.39%, respectively, for lysine, threonine and methionine. The meat and bone meals showed a great variation in function of the different batches, concerning the apparent and true coefficients of amino acid ileal digestibility.
amino acids; ileal digestibility; meat and bone meal; swines
