RED DEER, Alta. – A waste product from the grain industry is gaining popularity as a livestock feed on the Prairies.
Dockage, found in every load of grain at harvest time, can be used as a nutritious ruminant feed, said animal scientist John McKinnon, of the University of Saskatchewan. McKinnon holds the beef chair at the university and spoke at the Alberta Beef Congress held here March 18-20.
Dockage is unwanted material like broken seeds, chaff, pieces of stem or weed seeds cleaned out of grain. Also referred to as screenings, this material is usually shipped to west coast grain terminals and cleaned there. It is then processed and sold to Fraser Valley hog producers.
Read Also
Dry summer conditions can lead to poor water quality for livestock
Drought conditions in the Prairies has led to an decrease in water quality, and producers are being advised to closely monitor water quality for their animals.
“There is nothing new or magical about grain screenings. They’ve been around for a long period of time,” said McKinnon.
There are about 45 million tonnes of cereals and oilseeds produced annually in Canada and with 3.5 percent being dockage, that yields 1.6 million tonnes of screenings for animal feed.
Most inland high throughput grain terminals can clean grain before shipping, so the screenings could stay on the Prairies for use in feed rations at a reasonable cost, said McKinnon.
The screenings are separated into grades and when tested reveal a high energy and protein content. The pellets are about 90 percent dry matter and average 10 to 12 percent crude protein.
No. 1 feed screenings are at least 35 percent broken or shrunken kernels and are commonly used by the hog and poultry industries. No. 2 feed screenings have more weed seeds like wild oats, said McKinnon.
To get the best use from this leftover product, it should be ground or pelleted, said McKinnon. The pelleted product looks similar to bran buds used in cereal for people.
The screenings are easier to transport if processed into pellets. A double trailer truck can haul about 18 tonnes of raw screenings. Densely condensed pellets increase the load to about 40 tonnes, said McKinnon.
Animals can also digest pellets more easily than raw screenings. Weed seeds have hard coats that are difficult to digest if not ground or pelleted.
As well, weed seeds can pass through animals intact and remain viable enough to grow when the manure is spread on fields.
A study at the university last year involved a comparison of weight gain among two groups of steers. One group was fed screenings and the other barley silage.
Cattle fed screening pellets gained the same amount of weight as those on the silage diet. They consumed less feed which made their feed conversion ratios more efficient.
Screenings provided savings of about $13 a head for a 152-day feeding period compared to silage rations.
McKinnon said screenings are best for cows’ supplemental fall grazing or during calving time to give them additional energy.
“If you think about the needs of our cows or some of our backgrounding cattle we’ve got a product that’s a pretty nice match in terms of the needs of the animal and the content of the pellets,” said McKinnon.
Faults to feeding screenings
But screenings are not without faults.
There is a range in nutritional value because of the variability of screenings’ content. Some feed mills create a mixture from screenings and may add supplemental vitamins, minerals or other grain products like lentils to boost the feed value.
At the slaughter end, graders notice when animals ate screenings that contained stinkweed, for example. The fat takes on that smell, said McKinnon.
“I would back off six weeks prior to finishing with the screenings and go to straight barley to get away (from) any possible problems with carcass condemnation,” said McKinnon.
