Amino acid digestibility in non-ruminants : a review.

Approaches to the determination of dietary amino acid digestibility in monogastric farm animals are reviewed. In the growing pig, it appears that measurement of digestibility at the end of the ileum is justified but the situation is not so clear for poultry. Regardless of the species, the amino acid flow at the end of the ileum should be corrected for its endogenous component to give estimates of true digestibility. Routine approaches to determining amino acid digestibility are discussed and distinction between the measures of amino acid digestibility and availability is stressed.