Palm Oil Developments No.34 (June 2001) p7-10

Feeding Trials in Malaysia: Palm Kernel Cake as a Feedstuff for Cattle

ROSLI Awaluddin

Palm kernel cake (PKC) is the solid residue left from the extraction of oil from palm kernel. The oil is extracted from the kernel by expeller, i.e. continuous screw press, or by solvent extraction. Solvent extraction is not commonly utilized anymore because of its high cost. As a result, almost all the PKC produced in this country is the expeller type. PKC is light to dark brown in colour and expeller PKC is usually darker than solvent extracted PKC. PKC is a high value by-product of the oil palm industry and is potentially useful as an energy and protein source for feeding livestock, especially cattle. The only notable contaminant of concern in PKC used for feed- stuffs is the palm shell, which has no nutritive value and is undigestable. Thus, high amounts of shell in PKC will reduce the efficiency of digestion. PKC is generally used as an ingredient in compound feed for cattle and it can also be fed to cattle as a non-concentrate. A limited amount of PKC is also incorporated in the formulation of poultry and swine feed. There have been many studies based on feeding trials utilizing PKC as feed for livestock carried out by the various research institutions in the country and their outcomes have been favourable. Many trials showed that PKC can even be fed to cattle as the sole diet and that it gave good growth rates.



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