Indian Journal of Poultry Science

A series of experiments were conducted to see the effect of increasing the concentration of pepsin on the dry matter and the crude protein digestibility using two phase in vitro technique. One sample of maize and two samples each of groundnut extractions and fish meal were subjected to incubation with 500; 750; 1000 and 1250 units of pepsin during the first stage of incubation at 37°C for four hours. In the second phase, the samples were incubated for six hours using pancreatin and bile salts. The results of percent in vitro digestibility indicated that the increase in the pepsin concentration from 500 to 1250 tmits per 10 ml hydrochloric acid significantly (P<0.05) increased the dry matter digestibility in both the groundnut extraction and fish meal samples. No such effect in maize for dry matter digestibility was observed but the increase in pepsin concentration significantly (P<0.05) increased crude protein digestibility. The data for cmde protein digestibility showed that the increase in the pepsin concentration indicated a pronounced increase in fish meal samples as compared to groundnut, extraction.