Nutritional Values of Rice Bran and Effects of Its Dietary Supplementations on the Performances of Broiler Chickens

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the nutritional values of rice bran and to examine effects of its dietary supplementation on broiler performances. In the first experiment, true metabolizable energy(TME), nitrogen corrected true metabolizable energy(TMEn), and true amino acid availability(TAAA) values of the rice bran were determined by force-feeding sixteen roosters(ISA-Brown). In the second experiment, 3-week-old male broiler chickens(Avian) were divided into four groups and fed each one of four experimental diets containing 0, 5, 10 or 15% rice bran for 21 days. TME and TMEn values of the rice bran(dry matter basis) were 3.25 kcal/g and 3.12 kcal/g, respectively, and the average TAAA value of the 16 amino acids was 76.21%. The average feed intake and body weight gain of the birds fed diets containing rice bran were apparently greater than those of the control group although the differences were not significant statistically. From the results, it can be concluded that feed formulation using bioavailability values, such as TMEn and TAAA, is an effective method for protecting the high variation in growth performances and that rice bran can be used for broiler feeds to 15% without any significant negative effects.