Predicting the metabolizable energy content of corn for ducks: A comparison of support vector regression with other methods

Support vector regression (SVR) is used in this study to develop models to estimate apparent metabolizable energy (AME), AME corrected for nitrogen (AMEn), true metabolizable energy (TME), and TME corrected for nitrogen (TMEn) contents of corn fed to ducks based on its chemical composition. Performance of the SVR models was assessed by comparing their results with those of artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple linear regression (MLR) models. The input variables to estimate metabolizable energy content (MJ kg-1) of corn were crude protein, ether extract, crude fibre, and ash (g kg-1). Goodness of fit of the models was examined using R2, mean square error, and bias. Based on these indices, the predictive performance of the SVR, ANN, and MLR models was acceptable. Comparison of models indicated that performance of SVR (in terms of R2) on the full data set (0.937 for AME, 0.954 for AMEn, 0.860 for TME, and 0.937 for TMEn) was better than that of ANN (0.907 for AME, 0.922 for AMEn, 0.744 for TME, and 0.920 for TMEn) and MLR (0.887 for AME, 0.903 for AMEn, 0.704 for TME, and 0.902 for TMEn). Similar findings were observed with the calibration and testing data sets. These results suggest SVR models are a promising tool for modelling the relationship between chemical composition and metabolizable energy of feedstuffs for poultry. Although from the present results the application of SVR models seems encouraging, the use of such models in other areas of animal nutrition needs to be evaluated.

Funding, in part, was provided by the Canada Research Chairs program.

Peer Reviewed