Slide 1
Hi. My name is Caroline Gonzalez-Vega, and I'm a Ph. D. student in Dr.
Stein's lab. And today I have the pleasure to talk about the effects of
using copra meal, palm kernel expellers, or palm kernel meal in diets
for weanling pigs.

Slide 2
This is the outline of the presentation. First, I will start with a
short background about the copra meal and palm kernel products, and then
I will mention the materials and methods that were used in these three
experiments. And at the end, I will show the results and some
conclusions.

Slide 3
Copra meal is a coproduct of the coconut oil industry. And in 2011,
around 5.9 million metric tons of coconuts were produced in the world.
And around 1.9 million metric tons of copra meal was produced. This
production is abundant in tropical areas. And copra meal is used mainly
as a protein source; however, it is relatively low in lysine and
methionine compared with soybean meal.

Slide 4
The palm kernel products are coproducts of the palm oil industry. And in
2011, around 13 million metric tons of palm kernels were produced. And
around 6.7 million metric tons of palm kernel meal was produced. Palm
kernel products are mainly used as a protein source; however they are
relatively low in lysine and methionine compared with soybean meal. The
palm kernel products that we used in this experiment were palm kernel
expellers that are produced after the mechanical oil extraction, and the
palm kernel meal that is produced after the solvent oil extraction.

Slide 5
This is the analyzed nutrient composition of the copra meal, palm kernel
expellers, and palm kernel meal. And as you can see, copra meal and palm
kernel expellers contain more gross energy than the palm kernel meal.
And palm kernel expellers contains more fat, as acid hydrolyzed ether
extract, than the copra meal and the palm kernel meal. However, copra
meal contains more crude protein and lysine than the palm kernel
products. The palm kernel products contain more insoluble dietary fiber,
but the copra meal contains more soluble dietary fiber.

Slide 6
And because copra meal contains more soluble dietary fiber, the water
binding capacity is also greater than the palm kernel products. The palm
kernel expellers contained the greatest bulk density; this may be due to
the greater content of fat.

Slide 7
Recently, a research conducted in our lab by Sulabo and others were able
to determine the digestible energy, metabolizable energy, and the
standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids in copra meal, palm
kernel expellers from Indonesia and Costa Rica, and palm kernel meal. So
as you can see, the copra meal contained the greatest metabolizable
energy and digestible lysine and methionine. And among the palm kernel
products, the palm kernel meal contained less metabolizable energy and
digestible lysine and methionine.

Slide 8
Also, in our lab, Almaguer and others were able to determine the
standardized total tract digestibility of phosphorus in the same
ingredients. And as you can see, copra meal had the greatest digestible
phosphorus, and among the palm kernel products, the palm kernel
expellers had less digestible phosphorus than the palm kernel meal. It's
important to mention that the ingredients that we used for the three
experiments were from the same batch that Sulabo and Almaguer used.
Therefore, we were able to formulate the diets using the values that
were obtained by Sulabo and Almaguer. Also, it's important to mention
that we used a mixture of the palm kernel expellers from Indonesia and
Costa Rica. Therefore, we used the average values to formulate our
diets.

Slide 9
The objective of these experiments were to test the hypothesis that
copra meal, palm kernel expellers, or palm kernel meal may replace some
corn and soybean meal in Phase 2 diets fed to weanling pigs without
negatively impacting pig performance.

Slide 10
These are the materials and methods that we used. So for the first
experiment that we used copra meal, it was conducted in 20 days, and we
used 128 pigs with initial body weight of 9.2 kg. And we used four pigs
per pen. The second experiment that we used palm kernel expellers, was
conducted in 21 days, and we used 128 pigs with initial body weight of
9.8 kg. And we used four pigs per pen. And for the third experiment that
we used palm kernel meal, it was conducted in 20 days, and we used 160
pigs with initial body weight of 8.4 kg. We used five pigs per pen. And
in each experiment, we had four treatments with 0, 5, 10, and 15%
inclusion of the test feed ingredient. Each treatment contains eight
replicates.

Slide 11
These are the diets for the first experiment containing copra meal. So
as you can see, we include 0, 5, 10, and 15% copra meal, replacing some
corn and soybean meal. The fish meal was maintaining constant among the
diets, and because copra meal contained less digestible energy, then we
included more soybean oil to balance the energy for these diets. So as
you can see, the metabolizable energy for the diets was maintained
constant, and the same for digestible lysine,  methionine, and the other
amino acids, and also the digestible phosphorus.

Slide 12
For Experiment 2 using palm kernel expellers, we used the same procedure
as Experiment 1, including 0, 5, 10, and 15% palm kernel expellers.

Slide 13
And we did the same with the third experiment. We included 0, 5, 10, and
15% palm kernel meal.

Slide 14
We measured the body weight and the feed intake on days 0, 10, and 20
(or 21 for the palm kernel expeller experiment). And we calculated the
average daily gain, the average daily feed intake, and gain:feed ratio.

Slide 15
We analyzed the data using the Mixed procedure of SAS, and the treatment
was the fixed effect, replicate was the random effect, and we used the
orthogonal contrast for the linear effects.

Slide 16
Now, let's move to the results. But first, let's take a moment to set up
the slide. On the x axis, we have the variables – in this case, body
weight in kg at day 10 and 20. The yellow bar represents 0% inclusion of
the ingredient; the blue bar represents 5% inclusion; the green bar
represents 10% inclusion, and the red bar represents 15% inclusion. On
top of the bars, we have the P value for the linear effect. So as you
can see here, the body weight at day 10 was not affected by the
inclusion of copra meal. However, at day 20, the body weight was
linearly decreased as we included more copra meal in the diets.

Slide 17
The average daily feed intake was linearly decreased as we included more
copra meal in the diets. And the possible reason for this observation is
that as we included more copra meal in the diets, the water binding
capacity also increased, reducing the feed intake. And the average daily
gain was also linearly decreased by the inclusion of the copra meal. But
this may be due to the reduction of the feed intake. And the gain:feed
ratio had a tendency to decrease as we included more copra meal in the
diets

Slide 18
These are the results for the second experiment using palm kernel
expellers. The body weight at day 10 and day 21 were linearly decreased
as we included more palm kernel expellers in the diets.

Slide 19
There was not an effect of inclusion rate of palm kernel expellers on
the average daily feed intake. However, the average daily gain was
linearly decreased as more palm kernel expellers were included in the
diet. But the gain:feed ratio was not affected by the inclusion of palm
kernel expellers. So, in here only the average daily gain was affected
by the inclusion of palm kernel expellers.

Slide 20
These are the results from the third experiment using palm kernel meal.
And as you can see, the body weight at  day 10 was linearly decreased by
the inclusion of palm kernel meal. But day 20 was not affected by the
inclusion of palm kernel meal in the diets.

Slide 21
The average daily feed intake and average daily gain were not affected
by the inclusion rate of palm kernel meal. However, there was a tendency
to decrease the gain:feed ratio when we included more palm kernel meal
in the diets.

Slide 22
So in conclusion, if Phase 2 diets for weanling pigs are formulated
based on metabolizable energy, standardized ileal digestible amino
acids, and standardized total tract digestible phosphorus, then at least
15% of palm kernel meal may be included in the diets without affecting
overall performance. But if diets contain up to 15% copra meal or palm
kernel expellers, then the pig average daily gain will be slightly
reduced.

Slide 23
And with this, I want to thank you for your attention, and if you want
to know more about the monogastric nutrition group, or about other
nutrition topics, you can visit our website.