Determination of endogenous fat loss and true total tract digestibility of fat in mink (Neovison vison)

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to determine the endogenous fat loss (EFL) and to calculate true total tract digestibility (TTTD) of fat in mink (Neovison vison) using soybean oil–based diets with different fat levels. In the digestibility assay, four diets with 6.30%, 13.9%, 22.0% and 34.0% fat in dry matter were used. Sixteen adult male mink were distributed in a complete randomised design. The apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dietary fat was 90.8%, 95.9%, 96.9% and 97.8%, respectively. The apparent total digestible fat was linearly related to dietary fat intake (r² = 0.99). The EFL was estimated from the slope of the regression equation and was determined to be 5.09 g/kg DM intake. The TTTD of soybean oil was determined to be 99.3%. Therefore, TTTD values will have negligible impact in feed formulation as they are close to ATTD values with the dietary fat levels normally used for mink.

KEYWORDS:

• Carnivores
• endogenous fat
• energy digestibility
• fat digestibility
• mink
• regression analysis
• soybean oil

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Brazilian governmental research support institution Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior―CAPES for the doctoral scholarship to the first author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—CAPES [BEX 1114/14-0].