Rapeseed Meal

Rapeseed Meal

Description

Rapeseed meal is a protein-rich ingredient that is widely used to feed all classes of livestock.  The use of rapeseed meal as an animal feed was also limited by the presence of glucosinolates, which are antinutritional factors detrimental to animal performance. Rapeseed meal and rapeseeds to grow in importance as fed to livestock. In dairy cows, replacing soybean meal with rapeseed meal, maintained intake (with 20% rapeseed meal). Rapeseed meal is a suitable protein source for growing and finishing cattle. It is an excellent protein supplement for lactating dairy cows and can be included in relatively large amounts to their diet. Rapeseed meal has a good amino acid profile for ruminants, and contributes a significant amount of methionine, which is often the first limiting amino acid in production. In addition, the amino acid profile of the RUP fraction more closely matches requirements for maintenance and milk than other vegetable proteins. It is a good source of energy for ruminants. For solvent-extracted rapeseed meal, the net energy values for lactation cited in feed tables range from 6.8 to 7.45 MJ/kg DM. Digestibility is about 74-77%. Rapeseed meal is a highly palatable source of protein for ruminant animals.

Rapeseed meal is often included in the diets of several species of livestock because of its high protein content (35-38% of DM). It is often fed as a substitute for soybean meal. Rapeseed protein is poorer in lysine than soybean (5.5% vs. 6.3% of the crude protein) but is richer in sulphur-containing amino acids (sum of methionine + cysteine: 4.3% vs. 3% of the crude protein). Rapeseeds are small and contain about 18-21% hulls, and the oil meal contains about 30% hulls. Thus rapeseed meal has a relatively high fibre content, crude fibre being between 10-18% of DM, which is higher than the crude fibre content of all types of soybean meals, but lower than that of other oil meals such as sunflower meal. Its lignin content is also high (about 10% of DM), whereas the lignin content of soybean meal is usually lower than 1%. The low lysine and high fibre content tends to limit the use of rapeseed meal in monogastric and fish species. Feeding pigs and poultry with rapeseed meal as their only source of supplementary protein often results in lower animal performance. Solvent-extracted rapeseed meal contains small amounts of residual oil (about 3% DM). Canadian solvent-extracted canola meal may have a higher oil content due to the reintroduction of gums and soap stocks into the meal during processing