METHOD FOR DETERMINING METABOLIZABLE ENERGY OF FEEDS FOR FARM POULTRY Russian patent published in 2000 - IPC

FIELD: poultry farming. SUBSTANCE: method involves providing individual keeping of cocks of the same age and equal live weight; holding them for 24-32 hours without access to feed before control feeding; performing control feeding for 17-18 hours or 23-24 hours, during which birds are allowed free feed consumption; gathering dung released by each group of birds during 48 hours from the beginning of feeding process; drying dung and feed samples to constant weight; determining values of gross energy of dried samples and calculating metabolizable energy of feed; determining average ratio of weights of dry matter released with dung and dry matter consumed with feed for each group of birds; comparing obtained ratios in two groups; in case these ratios are equal, using averaged data on consumed feed and released dung for calculating metabolizable energy of feed; in case obtained ratios are not equal, using only data belonging to group with shorter feeding period. Method allows one bird to be continuously used for testing different feeds without necessity for recovery period and preliminary training, with digestibility rate of different products being taken into account. EFFECT: simplified method and increased precision of data obtained. 2 cl, 3 tbl, 2 ex