Palm kernel meal is a coproduct of the production of palm kernel oil. Although the amino acid profile and digestibility in palm kernel meal are less favorable than in soybean meal, it can provide significant protein in swine diets and may be used to reduce feed costs.

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that palm kernel meal may replace some corn and soybean meal in phase 2 diets fed to weanling pigs without negatively affecting growth performance.

Research has shown that grinding cereal grains in diets fed to pigs into smaller particle sizes improves growth performance. Feed ground to smaller particle sizes has more surface area on which digestive enzymes can work, so digestibility of energy and nutrients that are enzymatically digested may also  improved. Generating specific data on energy and nutrient digestibility will help determine the optimal particle size for feed ingredients.

An experiment was conducted to determine the concentration of digestible and metabolizable energy and to measure the apparent (ATTD) and standardized total tract digestibility (STTD) of phosphorus by growing pigs fed diets containing corn that was ground to different particle sizes.