A digestibility study conducted by São Paulo State University scientists determined the nutritional value of various ingredients for dog foods. Eight adult dogs were housed in metabolic cages, and distributed into 8 × 8 Latin square experimental design, with eight diets and eight replicates per diet. The difference, or substitution method was used to estimate ingredient digestibility. A reference diet was formulated based on nutritional requirements of dogs. For each test diet, 300 g/kg of the reference diet was replaced with the ingredient evaluated. All the diets were extruded.
Total tract apparent nutrient digestibility
Ingredient |
high oil maize |
sorghum |
millet |
broken rice |
maize germ |
wheat bran |
rice bran |
Dry matter |
0.893 |
0.905 |
0.859 |
0.905 |
0.654 |
0.593 |
0.550 |
Crude protein |
0.884 |
0.884 |
0.803 |
0.753 |
0.656 |
0.682 |
0.729 |
Fat |
0.855 |
0.786 |
0.821 |
0.668 |
0.482 |
0.538 |
0.852 |
Dietary fibre |
0.503 |
0.741 |
0.668 |
0.744 |
0.232 |
0.209 |
0.129 |
Starch |
0.986 |
0.987 |
0.991 |
0.992 |
0.955 |
0.896 |
0.904 |
Metabolizable energy (MJ/kg, as-fed basis) |
14.4 |
13.1 |
13.5 |
13.1 |
9.1 |
9.0 |
12.0 |
Chart courtesy of All About Feed
2 top trends for 2021 according to the pet food industry
New shelter data casts doubt on whether the pet population and pet ownership are truly growing.
Shelter pet adoption numbers down in 2020, but high rate
While the pandemic caused unprecedented suffering worldwide in 2020, the disruptions to dogs, cats and other pets adoption numbers may normalize in 2021.