Effects of Replacing Corn with Brown Rice or Brown Rice with Enzyme on Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility in Growing Pigs

TLDR: This experiment shows a positive effect of brown rice on growth performance, especially on nutrient digestibility, and a slight improvement in growth performance of pigs in brown rice treatments.

Abstract: A 4 week experiment was designed to study the effects of replacing corn with Chinese brown rice or adding different amylase in brown rice basal diet on growth performance and apparent fecal digestibilities of nutrients in growing pigs. One hundred and eight cross-bred pigs (Duroc×Landrace×Large White), weighing an average of 18.35±0.12 kg, were randomly assigned to 6 treatments with 6 replications per treatment. Diet in treatment 1 was corn-soybean meal basal diet, and in treatment 2, 3 and 4, corn was replaced by brown rice on rates of 33.3%, 66.7% and 100% respectively on the basis of treatment 1. And diets in treatment 5 and 6 were similar to treatment 4 except two kinds of amylases, glucoamylase and α-amylase, were added respectively. The brown rice used in this experiment was husked from one kind of early, long grain, non-glutinous rice (ELGNR, indica rice) in southern China. The results indicated that there was a slight improvement in growth performance of pigs in brown rice treatments (p>0.05). The blood urea nitrogen value in treatment 2 was lower than that in treatment 1 (p 0.05) but not for digestibilities. This experiment shows a positive effect of brown rice on growth performance, especially on nutrient digestibility. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2002. Vol 15, No. 9 : 1334-1340)