Solomon Demeke, 2007. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 19 (1)

Atella is a residue of home brewed beer in Ethiopia. The comparative nutritive values and protein qualities of Atella and Industrial Brewers Grains (BG) were studied using Noug Seed Cake (NSC) protein as reference. Atella, BG and NSC were subjected to chemical analysis followed by feeding trials comprising of five treatments containing either Atella, BG, NSC, 50% Atella plus 50 % NSC or 50% BG plus 50% NSC as a sole source of proteins using White leghorn baby chicks. Nutrient composition, body weight gain and Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) were used as the major evaluation parameters. The results showed that both Atella and BG are low in dry matter and inferior to NSC in feed value for poultry as measured by cell wall contents. The crude protein content of the dry matter of Atella and BG are comparable (21% and, 24%). However, 6.23% of the proteins of Atella was heat damaged and nutritionally unavailable due to the effect of the traditional production method. Inclusion of Atella as the sole sources of protein in starters ration had significantly (P< 0.05) lower feed intake, weight gain and PER value than the others. There was improvement in the performance of the experimental chicks as a result of partial substitution of proteins of Atella and BG by NSC protein, indicating that NSC proteins supplement both the proteins of Atella and BG in starter ration.