The Nutritional Value of Amaranth for Feeding Chickens

Amaranth seeds (Amaranthus cruentus), containing 13.5% protein and .96% lysine, were evaluated nutritionally in three experiments with chickens. Autoclaved amaranth gave better chick growth than raw amaranth when fed at 30% of the diet. The apparent metabolizable energy of amaranth, as determined with adult male chickens, was 2.86 kcal/g. Amaranth is relatively low in thiamin, and a deficiency of thiamin was noted in chickens fed rations containing 78.7% autoclaved amaranth for 17 days. Lysine in amaranth appeared to be readily available, because the growth of chicks fed amaranth supplemented with gelatin and lysine was similar to that observed with similar levels of total lysine in a lysine-supplemented corn-gelatin diet.