Global production of rice is third in terms of total tonnage after corn and wheat. Rice is grown to produce polished white rice for human consumption. However, harvested rice, called paddy rice or rough rice, needs to be dehulled, which results in production of brown rice. The outer brown bran layer of brown rice, known as rice bran, also needs to be removed before polished white rice is produced. Approximately 20% of the paddy rice is hulls and the bran fraction is 8 to 10%, so only 70% of the paddy rice will become polished rice. Rice bran is high in fiber, and also contains about 15% crude protein and 14 to 20% fat. Rice bran can be fed as full fat rice bran or defatted rice bran. During milling of the rice, some kernels may get broken and cannot be used for human consumption. These broken kernels are known as broken rice or brewers rice and may also be used in animal feeding. Broken rice is high in starch and contains little fat, fiber, or protein.
Both rice bran and broken rice may be fed to pigs, but these ingredients are poorly characterized in terms of nutritional value. An experiment was, therefore, conducted to determine the standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of crude protein and amino acids in broken rice, two sources of full fat rice bran (FFRB), and defatted rice bran (DFRB) fed to growing pigs.