Determination of Adequate Method for Protein Extraction from Rice Bran and the Substitution of Dried Skim Milk with Protein Concentrate from Rice Bran in Early Weaned Pigs (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Thailand is known as the main rice producer and exporter in the world. In the year 2010, rice in Thailand was harvested approximately 9.05 million ton, the co-/by products left such as broken rice, rice bran as well as hull are produced approximately 32.69 million ton after milling. Consequently these byproducts can be utilized as an ingredient of animal feed and some broken rice might be processed as flour and noodle for human consumption. Fresh or sole rice bran and extracted rice bran are mainly used as energy source in animal feed, however, currently rice bran oil after extraction is increasing popularity for human consumption and recognized to be a healthy products. The other nutritional quality of rice bran composed of approximately 12-15% protein and 3-4% lysine which is higher than that of rice endosperm protein or other cereal bran and legume, are still not fully use in animal feed. For a decade, about 80% of pigs in Thailand produced from intensive farming systems and 56% of these are from farms with over 1,000 pigs and was followed by small (50-200 pigs) and medium (201-1,000 pigs) farms. Large intensive farms are either integrated company owned (8.5%) or private independent (47.5%) farms (Cameron, 2000). Still, pig production in Thailand is being produced by large size farm, followed by medium size and the rest for small scale producer. As feed is known as the most variable expenditure in animal production, small farms may have high competitiveness because it is able to produce some feedstuffs by itself with lower production cost. To reduce the feed cost in mass production system or large scale farms, a complicate technology as well as a continuous processing with modern equipment should be utilized. In feed formulation for early weaning pig, skim milk was widely used because high activity of lactase can be maintained in gastrointestinal tract of post-weaning pig. However, because of expensive price of skim milk, many animal nutritionists tried to find out the alternative protein sources such as cooked soybean (Nongyao, 1974), steam and acid or base soaking (Uechiewchankit, 1975), germinated soybean (Tancho, 1988). Normally, new born piglets had their immunity by suckling colostrum which contained high levels of albumin and globulin. Coner et al. (1976) reported the nutritive value of rice bran protein concentrate (RBPC) extracted from fresh rice bran consisted of 24.7%, fat 36.4%, fiber 1.1%, ash 13.5% and starch 17.0% whereas those extracted from extracted rice bran had a value of 33.7, 8.2, 1.6, 17.0 and 25.5% respectively. Also, Juliano (1985) reported the RBPC had a similar protein percentage as in skim milk. A group of researchers (Bera and Mukherjee, 1989; Gnanasambandam and Hettiarachchy, 1995) was able to prepare rice bran protein concentrate/isolate and propose potential use as a food protein ingredient and also a weaning food. Therefore, RBPC had a potential to develop and substituted of skim milk in early weaning diet. The management of this technology could be access by develop the feasible method and manipulated the product as alternative protein at a lower cost in early weaning diet as well as serving the small scale farmer's self-reliance. The aims of this study were to investigate the appropriate method for rice bran extraction, and their affects to piglet performance when substitution at different levels for skim milk in the early weaning diet as well as cost return consideration.