Effects of replacing corn with brown rice or brown rice with enzyme on growth performance and nutrient digestibility in growing pigs

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 (DurocxLandracexLarge 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 alpha-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). The differences of apparent fecal digestibilities of most nutrients were significant (p<0.05) except CP. Digestibilities of GE, OM and DM in treatment 4 were the best and digestibility of crude fat in treatment 5 appeared best (p<0.05). Contrast results between treatment 1 and treatment 2 to 4 indicated that the digestibility of GE, OM and DM increased significantly with the replacing rates of brown rice (p<0.05). Contrast results between treatment 4 and 5 indicated that adding glucoamylase in brown rice diet increased growth performance slightly (p>0.05) but not for digestibilities. This experiment shows a positive effect of brown rice on growth performance, especially on nutrient digestibility.