Nutritional evaluation of pigeon pea meal.

Mineral, amino acid and fatty acid composition of pigeon pea meal were determined by analysis, while with chick essays, availability (true digestibility) of minerals and amino acids in the meal were estimated. Gross energy, metabolizable energy and true protein digestibility experiments were also conducted. Pigeon pea meal had a very high content of potassium, high content of potassium, high content of phosphorus, moderate content of calcium and magnesium and low content of iron, zinc, copper and manganese. Average availability of minerals was 58.09%. Amino acid content was low, especially cystine and methionine. Amino acid availability was 82.32%, lower than amino acid availability of soybean meal (greater than 90%). Pigeon pea lipids were predominantly saturated fatty acids (69.04%) with low content of unsaturated fatty acids (30.69%) and a total absence of linolenic acid. Metabolizable energy content (N-corrected) was 11.08 MJ/kg in raw pigeon pea and 12.03 MJ/kg in toasted pigeon pea meal.