The effect of rumen degradable protein level and source on the duodenal essential amino acid profile of sheep

Abstract

Two trials were conducted to determine the effects of rumen degradable protein (RDP) level and source on the duodenal essential amino acid (AA) composition of Dohne Merino wethers. The animals had ad libitum access to wheat straw (32 g crude protein (CP)/kg DM; 742 g neutral detergent fibre (NDF)/kg DM) and water. In the first experimental treatments casein provided 0, 40, 80, 120 and 160 g supplemental RDP/d. In experiment two, urea-nitrogen replaced 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of the true protein in the isonitrogenous treatments. Expressing essential AA concentration as a percentage of duodenal protein indicated that increasing RDP levels tended to decrease arginine, but significantly increased tryptophan concentrations. Histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, valine and total essential AA concentrations were not affected by dietary RDP level. Increasing the urea-N content of RDP supplements significantly decreased isoleucine, leucine, lysine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, valine and total essential amino acid (TEAA) concentrations. Histidine and threonine proportions also tended to decrease with higher non-protein N levels. When the essential AA profile is expressed in relation to lysine, the concentrations of histidine, leucine, phenylalanine and threonine decreased significantly. Arginine and valine showed a decreasing trend and tryptophan increased significantly as RDP levels were raised. The largest differences appeared between 0 and 40 g RDP supplementation, while the AA patterns for the rest of the treatments remained relatively constant. Substituting urea for true RDP induced a variable response in arginine and isoleucine, but did not affect any of the other AA\'s. Increasing RDP intakes significantly increased the duodenal flow of every essential AA, except arginine, and showed a strong tendency to increase TEAA flow as well. Replacing true RDP with urea significantly reduced the flow of methionine and tryptophan and also tended to decrease lysine availability in the duodenum. Individual AA and TEAA flow to the duodenum were also numerically decreased by a minimum of 34% as urea-N was increased. It appears that the qualitative duodenal essential AA profile in sheep fed low quality forages is relatively insensitive to RDP level or source. The daily essential AA flow to the duodenum seems to be compromised by urea substitution for true RDP..

Keywords: Amino acid; microbial protein;rumen degradable protein; urea; casein

South African Journal of Animal Sciences Vol. 35 (3) 2005: pp.162-171