Chemical Composition and Nutritive Values

The nutritional quality of an oil meal protein will be affected by the processing conditions to which it is been exposed. Three major factors that affect the nutritional quality are the amino acid composition, amino acid availability and the presence of anti-nutritional factors.

The nature of a protein in a particular oil seed is relatively constant but that the cake or meal derived from it may vary depending upon the method of processing employed for the removal of the oil. Extremes of temperatures and pressures of the expeller processing may result in lowering of digestibility and the denaturation of proteins with a consequent lowering of nutritive value.Solvent extraction does not involve pressing, temperatures are comparatively low and protein value of meals is almost same as that of the original seed. The average chemical composition of 8 important oil seed extractions/ meals is presented

Oil meals contribute to more than half of the total protein in the diet of dairy animals. The increased demand for protein is likely to lead to increased protein scarcity and cost in feeding of dairy animals. The per cent CP and ME values of 13 important oil seeds meals commonly available in the country are presented

The soybean meal, groundnut meal, rape seed meal, sesame oil meal and cotton seed meal can be grouped under high protein sources (35 to 45% CP) , while sunflower meal, coconut meal, niger seed meal, linseed meal, safflower meal etc. are medium protein sources ( 25 to 35% CP). Most of the oil meals stand next only to cereals in providing the metobolizable energy to the livestock.
Perusal of available research data reveal that wide variation exists among the various
unconventional feedstuffs with respect to their DCP and TDN values which reflecting further on their level of feeding in different livestock species which is further influenced by the toxic factor (s) present in the each of the feedstuffs