Methods for Evaluating the Feeding Quality of Meat-and-Bone Meals

MEAT-AND-BONE meals, because of their nature as a by-product of the meat packing and rendering industries, vary greatly in their feeding quality (Kratzer and Davis, 1959). This variability is caused primarily by the quality of the starting material or by the amount of heat-processing the meal receives. Growth trials using meat-and-bone meals as the sole dietary protein source give a reliable evaluation of the feeding quality of the meal. This type of evaluation is slow, however, and inadequate when a large number of samples must be assessed, or when decisions concerning the feeding quality of a meal must be made in a short period of time. The present study was undertaken to find a rapid chemical or physical method, or series of methods, to determine the feeding quality of meat-and-bone meals. Meat-and-bone meals contain large amounts of skin, cartilage, and connective tissue, and therefore have a high gelatin content (Almquist…