The production of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) involves a drying step in which temperature may reach 500°C or greater. The application of heat and moisture to feedstuffs results in the Maillard reaction, which reduces the concentration and digestibility of amino acids. Lysine's chemical structure makes it particularly susceptible to the Maillard reaction. However, during the acid hydrolysis step of amino acid analysis, some lysine is recovered from Maillard products, but this lysine cannot be utilized by the animals, and thus, the amount of digestible lysine in a sample may be overestimated. Therefore, methods other than simple lysine analysis must be used when assessing feed that may be heat damaged.
An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of heat damage on the digestibility of crude protein and amino acids in corn DDGS fed to growing pigs. A second objective of the experiment was to develop regression equations to predict the concentration of standardized ileal digestible (SID) amino acids in DDGS.