Glossary > Feed Ingredients > FEATHER MEAL

Feather meal a poultry by-product has been used as an ingredient in the manufacture of feeds.

Feather meal contains about 80-85 percent protein and is a relatively good source of sulphur-containing amino acids.

Whether these amino acids are completely available has not been demonstrated. Good results have been reported when it is used in catfish diets at the 15 percent level. Poultry by-products are lower in lysine than fishmeal, and trout diets containing over 75 percent poultry by-products would be deficient in the amino acid.

That some of the sulphur-containing amino acids in hydrolyzed feather meal are available to salmonids was recently demonstrated in feeding tests at the University of Washington. In these experiements, trout grew much better on mixes of feather meal and yeast SCP than when either of these commodities was used as the sole source of protein.