Effects of heat and alcohol treatments of soybean meal on nitrogen utilization by sheep.

Soybean meal (SBM) was treated with aqueous solutions of ethanol or propanol at room temperature or at 80 C to study treatment effects on SBM-N solubility and utilization by sheep. Soybean meal was soaked in an excess of 70% (v/v) ethanol at 80 C (ET-80), 70% ethanol at 23 C (ET-23) or 70% propanol at 80 C (PR-80). Nontreated SBM and nontreated SBM heated at 80 C without alcohol treatment (NT-80) served as controls. Nitrogen solubility in McDougall's buffer was lowest (P less than .05) for PR-80 and ET-80 (2.2 and 4.7% of total N, respectively), intermediate (P less than .05) for ET-23 (9.0%), greater (P less than .05) for nontreated SBM (36.2%) and highest for NT-80 (40.2%). In an situ study using three ruminally cannulated cows and two bags per treatment per animal per removal time, more (P less than .05) N remained in in situ bags after 3, 6, 9 and 12 h incubation for ET-23, ET-80 and PR-80 than for nontreated SBM and NT-80. A lamb metabolism trial, using 15 lambs in each of two periods, compared nontreated SBM, ET-23, ET-80, PR-80 and urea as N supplements. Nitrogen retention was higher (P less than .02) for lambs fed SBM treatments compared with urea. When the same N supplements were fed to wethers in a 5 X 5 Latin square experiment and duodenal N flow was measured, non-ammonia non-bacterial N flow was higher (P less than .07) for wethers fed SBM treatments than for wethers fed urea.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)