Buckwheat in the Nutrition of Livestock and Poultry

Summary

With its high contents of starch, buckwheat grain can be a valuable source of carbohydrates in diets for any kind of livestock and poultry. Although the crude protein concentrations are limited, its amino acid profile is advantageous due to the high intrinsic proportions of lysine and methionine. In many regions with temperate climate conditions it is possible to cultivate buckwheat as a catch crop, e.g. after the harvest of barley, in the same season. This makes the crop a second harvest from a given arable land within the same year. If it is used to feed livestock, it contributes to decrease the feed-food competition about arable surfaces in a world with dramatically growing food demands. As a flowering crop, buckwheat positively contributes to the insect ecosystems including honey bees, particularly if it is cultivated as second crop in late summer. The main polyphenolic metabolite of buckwheat , rutin, is considered to have advantageous influence on the metabolism in livestock and poultry species by contributing antioxidant effects and positively influencing the lipid metabolism in ruminants, which finally results in an increased physiological value of the lipid fractions in animal products. These aspects give buckwheat a high although rarely realized potential in the nutrition of livestock and poultry. Potential veterinary problems evoked by the buckwheat metabolite hypericin should be subject of further research in nutrition and breeding research.