Nutritive activity of soluble rice bran arabinoxylans in broiler diets

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Abstract
1. A soluble material (703 g/kg non‐starch polysaccharide, 141 g/kg starch and 166 g/kg protein) of low viscosity (termed RB‐NSP), was isolated in large quantities from defatted Australian rice bran using a mild alkaline extraction and ethanol precipitation. 2. The soluble non‐starch polysaccharide fraction of RB‐NSP comprised arabinose (0.40 mol%), xylose (0.32 mol%) galactose (0.17 mol%), glucose (0–08 mol%) and mannose (0.03 mol%). 3. RB‐NSP was included at graded concentrations (0, 20, 40 and 60 g/kg) in a sorghum/casein basal diet and the diet fed to male broilers in a classical balance trial to determine apparent metabolisable energy (AME). The AME values recorded were 13.26, 13.85, 14.26 and 14.00 MJ/kg DM with a significant correlation (r = 0.65, P< 0.001) between dietary RB‐NSP inclusion rate and dietary AME. 4. Feeding RB‐NSP had no effect on growth, food conversion ratio or the digestibilities of starch and protein which were both high (0.98–0.99 and 0.88–0.89, respectively). 5. It was concluded that the RB‐NSP may have been a substrate for hindgut fermentation in the broiler but that it possessed no anti‐nutritive activity.