Poultry International - January 2018 - 38
38 ❙ PoultryInternational Understanding rice bran in pig, poultry feeds Rice bran is an atypical ingredient; it has excellent nutritive value, but it is undervalued by most nutritionists and the commodities market. IOANNIS MAVROMICHALIS Rice bran can be a valuable ingredient if it is of high-quality origin. Palagiri I Wikimedia.org Rice bran is a misnomer, or rather a confusing term because it can encompass a range of rice byproducts at variable concentrations. But rice bran it is, and this name has prevailed in literature and commerce. It is a very atypical ingredient: it has excellent nutritive value, but it is undervalued by most nutritionists; it is widely available, but hardly traded in the commodities market. Understanding how rice bran is produced and its problems will help nutritionists seek out this eccentric ingredient and use it in pig and poultry diets with confidence. The rice milling process It all starts with rice grain as it arrives from the field. The rice we grow and the rice we humans eat do not look the same. Field rice comes with a tightly attached outer husk or hull, very much like barley and oats. Removing the hulls is the first step in the rice milling industry. Unlike other similar cereals, rice has hulls extremely rich in silica (silicon dioxide), better known as quartz or sand. As such, rice hulls are immensely abrasive not only on the feed mill machinery, but also inside the animal. Read more: 5 guidelines for alternative animal feed ingredients Field rice comes with a tightly attached hull that is rich in silica. | Indiatraveler I Dreamstime.com Consumption of rice hulls at sufficient quantities can cause diarrhea (best case scenario) and www.WATTAgNet.com ❙ January 2018