Feeding dried distillers grains to cattle can produce animals with less tasty fat and more waste fat if the inclusion rate is too high, says the world’s largest beef brand.
An analysis of 13 feed studies conducted by Chris Reinhardt, an extension feedlot specialist with Kansas State University, shows that high rates of dried distillers grains in feed rations reduces marbling.
At inclusion rates exceeding 29 percent, there was a 20-point drop in marbling on a 1,000-point scale.
“That may not sound like much of a drop but it is significant, especially when grid premiums are on the line,” said Larry Corah, vice-president of Certified Angus Beef.
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“For producers trying to hit a high quality target like the Certified Angus Beef brand, this is one of dozens of little things that can add up.”
Corah estimated five to 10 percent of cattle could go either way when it comes to making the top quality grades. They are right on the line and it doesn’t take much to move into the quality markets or drop down into the discount grades.
“If you nudge marbling down, you may end up falling into one of those categories where you get a price discount.”
Brad Wildeman, president of Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd., an integrated ethanol and feedlot operation in Lanigan, Sask., doubts there are many feedlots incorporating dried distillers grains, or DDGs, at rates higher than 30 percent.
But if the supply of DDGs continues to grow and the price continues to drop, that may be a possibility down the road.
Farmers are more likely to go with the cheap feed and boost inclusion rates rather than keep rates below 30 percent and trying to attain top grades, Wildeman said.
The value of premiums will ultimately guide their feeding decisions.
Wildeman said it is the same idea as trying to grow wheat for protein premiums.
“If you get it, you’re pretty happy. But I don’t think a lot of people are slugging on a whole pile of nitrogen because they think they might have a chance of getting another point of protein.”
Distillers grains are rapidly displacing other feed ingredients in the United States as ethanol plants flood the market with the cheap byproduct.
America’s growing ethanol industry produced 17.7 billion litres of fuel in 2005 and consumed 15 percent of that year’s corn crop.
More than 80 percent of Nebraska’s large feedlots use DDGs in their cattle diets. The grains are commonly fed at 10 to 40 percent inclusion rates but some producers are going as high as 70 percent.
Corah is not advocating that cattle feeders exclude distillers grains from their rations. He said it is an excellent, inexpensive, high-protein ingredient.
But DDGs have a lower starch content than competitive feed ingredients and that appears to be causing a problem at the higher inclusion rates.
“This research does not amount to a warning that says, ‘stop all use of distillers grains.’ But it is important to find the threshold of feeding them that won’t cause an excessive decrease in quality grade,” he said.
As long as cattle feeders keep the inclusion rate below 30 percent, there should be no noticeable impact on marbling.
Wildeman said feeders would be better off concentrating on some of the other myriad factors affecting marbling. Pound-Maker and the University of Saskatchewan have done a number of research trials comparing carcass quality using wheat distillers grain versus other types of feed.
“We could not see that there were any significant differences at all,” he said.
