YUKOVA L.P., SHOPINSKAYA M.I. FUNCTIONAL FEATHER KERATIN AS A SOURCE OF PROTEIN AND ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS IN POULTRY FEED
One of the main factors affecting the productivity, product quality, poultry health, and ensuring the efficiency of industrial production of eggs and poultry meat, is nutritious feeding with particular attention to protein and amino acid composition. It is believed that the extent and comprehensiveness of protein feeding determines 30% of poultry productivity. The nutritional status of feedstock for poultry in terms of protein content depends not only on the crude protein level, but also on the amino acids content, so special attention is paid to the balancing of the so-called limiting, or critical, amino acids, such as lysine, methionine, cystine and tryptophan, as their amount and ratio in the diet plays an important role for the efficiency of utilization of all the other amino acids in the feed. A lack or an excess of amino acids, their physiological mismatch in the ratio of the birds' diet impair the birds' metabolism, which results in worse transformation of the nutrients of the feedstock into the products, the growth of young birds slows down, and the productivity of adult birds is reduced. The sources of protein in poultry raising are feedstocks of animal and vegetable origin. Protein of animal origin has more nutritious value because of greater variety of amino acids and their better ratio, better accessibility of amino acids in animal protein, and its higher vitamins content in comparison with plant protein; on the other hand, it is not as easily available and more expensive, so the diet of poultry is often characterized by protein deficiency. Currently, existing animal protein deficiency may be compensated by a more rational use of keratin containing raw product of poultry-processing industry. As a part of the research into the possibility of using functional feather keratin as a protein-base of feed for poultry we identified amino acid and mineral composition of the functional feather keratin, and paid special attention to the indicators reflecting safety and high quality ofe raw materials.