Apparent and Standardized Total Tract Digestibility of Phosphorus in Aspergillus niger Treated Wheat Offal, Brewers’ Dried Grain and Palm Kernel Cake Fed to Growing Pigs

Abstract

The apparent total tract digestiblity (ATTD) and standardized total tract digestibility (STD) of phosphorus (P) in a Aspergillus
niger treated wheat offal (WO), Brewers Dried Grain (BDG) and palm kemel cake (PKC), were measured using growing pigs
(Large White X Hampshire) of average weight 21.02 + 0.63 kg in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement. Six diets based on WO, BDG
and PC with or without Aspergillus niger treatment were formulated. A -free diet was also formulated to measure endogenous losses of P. The results of the experiment showed that the ATTD and STD of P in treated WO (72.22 and 83.26 %), BDG
(84.61 and 88.21 %) and PKC (82.36 and 85.68 %) were greater (p < 0.05) than in untreated WO (53.54 and 58.08 %), BDG
(67.83 and 73.92 %) and PKC (78.47 and 82.37 ) respectively. The microbial treatment of the diets also reduced (p< 0.05) the
excretion of P in the faeces from (1.13 to 0.71 g), (0.53 to 0.43 g) and (0.56 to 0.55 g) in WO, BDG and PKC respectively.
Findings from this study showed that Aspergillus niger treatment of the WO, BDG and PKC significantly (p<0.05) improved the
ATTD and STD of phosphorous. Also, Aspergillus niger treatment of WO, BDG and PKC could reduce -excretion in growing
pigs fed these feedstuffs.