• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1153-1160
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• 2019

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of bamboo grass (Tiliacora triandra, Diels) pellet (Bamboo-Cass) supplementation on feed intake, nutrient digestibility, rumen microbial population and methane production in Thai native beef cattle. Methods: Four Thai native beef cattle bulls ($190{\pm}2kg$) were randomly allotted to four respective dietary treatments in a $4{\times}4$ Latin square design. Treatments were the varying levels of Bamboo-Cass supplementation at 0, 50, 100, and 150 g/head/d, respectively. Rice straw was fed ad libitum and the concentrate offered at 0.5% of body weight. Results: Under this experiment, the findings revealed that acetate and butyrate production were decreased (p<0.05), propionate increased (p<0.05), whilst ruminal $NH_3-N$ concentration was decreased (p<0.05) by supplementation of Bamboo-Cass at 150 g/head/d. Moreover, rice straw intake, and microbial population were linearly increased (p<0.05), while methane production was decreased (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results from the present study indicate that supplementation of Bamboo-Cass at 150 g/head/d significantly enhanced feed intake, decreased protozoa and increased bacterial population, rumen fermentation efficiency while decreased methane production. Therefore, Bamboo-Cass as a supplement is promising as a rumen enhancer in beef cattle fed on rice straw.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.332-338
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• 2007

Yield mapping is necessary for precision farming. An on-site rice weighing system for a head-feed combine was developed to measure the total weight of rice grain harvested while the combine was operated. A load cell system was used to monitor rice weights accumulated into the combine grain tank using a load cell. This method gave cumulative grain weight readings as a function of time. The system consisted of a load cell, two supporting brackets, and a computer-based data acquisition system. The weights measured with the system from two fields were compared with those obtained with a commercially available electronic balance. The response of the load cell to varying grain weights was linearly modeled, showing a coefficient of determination of 0.998 and a standard error of ${\pm}4.09kg$.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.377-386
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• 2023

The effect of different commercially available bedding materials on the growth performance and carcass characteristics of ducks for 42 days was investigated. 336 one-day-old White-Pekin ducklings (60.48 ± 0.16 g) were randomly allocated into 24-floor pens with one of the three beddings namely i) coco peat, ii) rice husks, or iii) sawdust. 14 ducklings per pen and 8 replicate pens per bedding material were used. Birds were fed a starter diet from days 1-21 and a grower diet from days 22-42. Weekly growth performance evaluation was conducted for the average body weight, weight gains, daily feed intake, and feed conversion efficiency. One bird per pen was sacrificed on day 42 for the evaluation of carcass characteristics including the carcass, breast, and leg muscle percentages. Breast and leg muscle samples were then collected and analyzed for their proximate and pH values. Higher body weights (p < 0.05) were noticed with rice husks on day 42 only. Improved daily gains (p < 0.05) were also noticed for birds raised with rice husks over the entire period (days 1-42). Concerning feed intake, higher values (p < 0.05) were similarly noted with rice husks for the grower phase (days 22-42), and the entire experimental period (days 1-42). Marginally improved feed intake values were also noted with the use of rice husks as the bedding materials on day 42 (p = 0.092). Improved feed efficiency (p < 0.05) was noticed with rice husks on day 35, the grower period, and the entire 42-day period. However, no significant differences were noticed for most of the carcass characteristics that were evaluated. Nevertheless, higher (p < 0.05) pH values for the breast muscle were noticed with the use of coco peat and sawdust as the bedding. Conclusively, the bedding type could have a significant impact on the growth performance of ducks without adverse effects on carcass characteristics. The use of rice husks as bedding might be advantageous and is therefore recommended.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1790-1798
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• 2006

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of feeding cyanidin 3-glucoside (C3G) high black rice bran on nutrient digestibility, blood measurements, growth performance and pork quality of pigs. In Exp. I, a total of fifteen pigs (19.91${\pm}$1.80 kg, average initial body weight) were used in assay of nutrient digestibility and blood measurements. All pigs were allotted to 5 treatments with 3 replicates according to a completely randomized design (CRD) in an individual metabolic crate. Treatments included 1) CON: basal diet, 2) BRB-2: basal+brown rice bran 2%, 3) BRB-4: basal+brown rice bran 4%, 4) CRB-2: basal+C3G high black rice bran 2% and 5) CRB-4: basal+C3G high black rice bran 4%. The digestibility of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fat (CF), crude ash (CA) and crude fiber (CF) was not affected by dietary treatments. Serum triglyceride (TG) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentrations were not affected by addition of C3G high black rice bran. However, at the end of experiment, pigs fed rice bran showed decreased tendency in total cholesterol concentration. Especially pigs fed C3G high black rice bran showed significantly lower total cholesterol concentration compared to pigs fed brown rice bran (p<0.03). There was numerically lower total cholesterol concentration with increasing levels of black rice bran in the diet. In terms of serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) and glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT), there were no significant differences among treatments, even though pigs fed CRB-4 showed the lowest GOT concentration compared to other pigs. In Exp. II, sixteen finishing pigs (average initial body weight 89.96${\pm}$0.35 kg) were divided into 4 treatments to investigate the effect of feeding C3G high black rice bran on growth performance and pork quality. There were no significant differences in average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) among the treatments. Pigs fed C3G high black rice bran showed numerical decrease in ADG and increase in FCR while not effecting feed intake. There was no significant difference in live weight, carcass weight, carcass rate, backfat thickness and carcass grade. However, pigs fed C3G high black rice bran tended to show lower backfat thickness than pigs fed basal diet. Pigs fed C3G high black rice bran showed a tendency of decreased TBA value than pigs fed basal diet, although there was no overall significant difference among treatments. In conclusion, nutrient digestibility, blood measurements, growth performance and pork quality were not significantly affected by feeding C3G high black rice bran to pigs. However, C3G high black rice bran might have an effect on lowering serum total cholesterol and decrease the TBA value in pork compared to control group and these effects might be due to high concentration of antioxidative compounds in C3G high black rice bran.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.452-461
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• 2012

Four, ruminally fistulated crossbred (Brahman${\times}$native) beef cattle with initial body weight of $420{\pm}15kg$ were randomly assigned according to a $4{\times}4$ Latin square design. The dietary treatments were mulberry leaf pellet (MUP) supplementation at 0, 200, 400 and 600 g/hd/d with rice straw fed to allow ad libitum intake. All steers were kept in individual pens and supplemented with concentrate at 5 g/kg of body weight daily. The experiment was 4 periods, and each lasted 21 d. During the first 14 d, all steers were fed their respective diets ad libitum and during the last 7 d, they were moved to metabolism crates for total urine and fecal collection. It was found that increasing MUP levels resulted in linearly increasing rice straw and total intakes (p<0.05). Ruminal temperature and pH were not significantly affected by MUP supplementation while $NH_3$-N concentration was increased (p<0.05) and maintained at a high level (18.5 mg/dl) with supplementation of MUP at 600 g/hd/d. Similarly, viable total bacteria in the rumen and cellulolytic bacteria were enriched by MUP supplementation at 600 g/hd/d. However, the rumen microbial diversity determined with a PCR-DGGE technique showed similar methanogenic diversity between treatments and sampling times and were similar at a 69% genetic relationship as determined by a UPGMA method. Based on this study, it could be concluded that supplementation of MUP at 600 g/hd/d improved DM intake, ruminal $NH_3$-N, and cellulolytic bacteria thus iimproving rumen ecology in beef cattle fed with rice straw.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.211-224
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• 2008

Characteristics of the esterification reaction between free fatty acid in rice bran oil and methanol was investigated in the presence of catalysts, such as PTS(p-toluene sulfonic acid), Amberlyst 15 dry and SCX(silica gel based strong cation exchange resin). While reaction temperature was kept constant at $65^{\circ}C$, initial feed content of free fatty acid was varied from 100% to 1% by addition of pure free fatty acid which was previously made from rice bran oil. Also, the effect of mole ratio of methanol to fatty acid on the final conversion was examined. When esterification of pure free fatty acid was catalyzed by several acids, final conversions were increased in order of Amberlyst 15 dry, SCX and PTS. Using PTS catalyst, initially the reaction proceeded in homogeneous 2nd oder reaction mechanism. However, phase of reaction mixture changed from homogeneous to heterogeneous along the reaction time and then reaction rate was retarded by mass transfer resistance of methanol. Final conversion of free fatty acid in reaction mixture was depended on initial feed content of free fatty acid, and had maximum value at 30% of initial feed free fatty acid content for all kinds of catalysts used. And the final conversion was increased with mole ratio of methanol by the improvement of reaction rate. When initial feed free fatty acid content below 10% and the reaction was catalyzed by PTS, concentration of free fatty acid in reaction mixture was increased in the middle of reaction time by hydrolysis of triglyceride in reaction mixture. Also, if silica gel was added into the reaction mixture which had initial feed free fatty acid content below 50%, final conversion was increased by the adsorption of moisture produced. The SCX catalyst made the esterification reaction of free fatty acid to progress like in case of PTS catalyst. However, when initial feed free fatty acid content below 10%, concentration of free fatty acid in. reaction mixture was decreased monotonically and not increased in the middle of reaction time on the contrary to the case of PTS. Thus, SCX catalyst accomplished more high value of final conversion than PTS catalyst for the initial feed fatty acid content range from 50% to 5% In case of initial feed free fatty acid content of 1% and mole ratio of methanol was 2, concentration of free fatty acid in reaction mixture increased over the initial feed free fatty acid content for all kind of catalysts used. Although SCX catalyst was added into reaction mixture which had 1% of initial feed fatty acid content, final conversion was hardly raised by mole ratio of methanol.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.967-976
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• 1996

Straw and other fibrous by-products are inevitably produced during cereal production and have traditionally been used for many purposes including feeding animals . The potential of these by -products as a feed resource for ruminants is being increasingly appreciated (FAO , 1977). In the future, the amount of cereals fed to farm animals will have to be reduced and livestock will have to rely more on by-products such as straw. The method of animal production can be classified by the major portion of feed. One is animal forage and the other is grains. In Korea , livestock farmers normally depend more than 70% upon grains for the feed stuff. The livestock production system causes the unbalance of nutrition, and results in low productivity of animal farming. In many livestock farms in Korea the rice straw is using as a major forage and the amount of rice straw fed takes 46% of total amount of required forages. Especially the rice straw is mainly using during spring, fall and winte season. However, there are still lots of problems to solved such as harvesting cost, transportation between rice farm ad livestock farm, and quality loss during drying and storage . Therefore the mechanization of straw harvesting is urgently needed to use the renewable agricultural by-products and to overcome the shortage of animal forage. The objective of this research is to develope a straw harvester with new concept which can solve the problems of the quality loss and the labor cost during drying in a field, collecting , and storage. The developed straw harvester is self-propelled machine rebuilt by rice combine and equipped with the pick-up device, the macerater and the mat-forming device.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.159-166
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• 2006

Threshing loss was increased due to dropping of the threshing efficiency when the 4 row head-feed combine harvested 5 row rice to improve harvesting performance of a combine. Reasonable design criteria were examined to determine the ranges of both of feed rate and the length of threshing drum for the 4 row head-feed combine being used as a 5-row combine. Harvesting performance increased as working width or working speed increased, it resulted in 15% increase when the working width increased from 4 row to 5 row. Harvesting operations of the 4 row combine performed normally in the 4 row rice in threshing loss less than 1%, however, threshing loss increased to 2.25% in the 5 row due to poor threshing efficiency. The length of threshing drum was increased from 710 mm to 810 mm as well as the speed of crop feed chain was increased from 0.61 m/s to 0.75 m/s so as to improve the poor threshing efficiency resulted from the enlarged working width from the 4 row to the 5 row, which would decrease threshing loss less than 1%.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.91-97
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• 1993

This experiment was carried out to examine the effects of urea-treated rice straw feeding on the growth performance of crossbred Holstein heifers under different feeding conditions. In the first experiment, the animals were given diets having 2 levels of TDN and CP and 3 levels of crude fiber (22, 30 and 36%) which were formulated with urea-treated rice straw and concentrates. Daily weight gain of heifers was not different between 22% and 30% CF diets, but the reduction of TDN or CP level to 90% of the requirements decreased the weight gain. Fiber content of 36% also reduced the body weight gain. The reduction of TDN significantly reduced DM intake and increased feed conversion ratio. Feed cost per kg weight gain was significantly increased by an increase in CF to 36%. In the second experiment, separate feeding and total mixing feeding were compared. There were no significant differences between the two feeding systems in body weight gain although the possibility of superiority in SF to TMF remained. DM intake was not affected by the feeding system, but 30% CF diet gave higher DM intake. Feed cost per kg weight gain was lower in the 30% CF diet.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 2016

This study aimed of effects of replacing maize with rice or brown rice on laying performance, egg quality, and apparent fecal digestibility of nutrient in Hy-Line Brown laying hens. A total of 200, 25-week old Hy-Line Brown laying hens were randomly assigned to one of 5 treatments, each of which was replicated 4 times. Four experimental diets that were formulated two different grains (brown rice or rice) with two inclusion levels of (15 and 30%) as a replacement of maize. The experimental period was 8 weeks. During the experiment, hens were provided with feed and water ad libitum and were exposed to a 16:8=L:D lighting schedule. There were no differences in feed intake, egg weight, and egg mass during the 8 weeks of the feeding trial among groups. However, hen-day egg production was greater (P<0.05) for Brown rice treatment groups than that for basal and rice treatment groups. In addition, the supplementation of brown rice or rice did not have an effect on eggshell strength, eggshell thickness, and HU during of the feeding trial (Table 4). However, egg yolk color was less (P<0.05) for basal treatment groups than that for among treatment group. ATTD of dry matter (DM) and crude fat were greater (P<0.05) for brown rice 15 treatment than for rice 30 treatment. Crude protein (CP) was greater (P<0.05) for brown rice 15 treatment than for basal treatment. In conclusion, brown rice or rice grains is a good alternative energy feedstuff and can be used in laying hens, totally replacing maize, without any negative effect on the laying performance, egg quality, and nutrient digestibility.