Wheat-based dried distillers grain can be used effectively in backgrounding and finishing of beef cattle, according to a recent study of prairie cattle.
Dried distillers grain is a growing feed source in the United States due to the sprouting of ethanol plants across the American Midwest.
But most feeding research is related to corn DDG products, not wheat.
There are differences and researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, along with scientists at Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge research centre, have been analyzing wheat DDG so that Canadian cattle producers may expand their use of locally produced feed products.
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“DDGs have three times the fat and protein of the raw grain. So managing them well is critical to profitability and good stewardship,” said John McKinnon, speaking at Saskatoon’s Western Nutrition Conference last week.
McKinnon is the Saskatchewan beef industry chair and a professor of livestock nutrition at the U of S department of animal and poultry science.
Increased feed prices are creating new opportunities to background calves, say producers.
Stan Jeeves of Wolseley, Sask., has a cow-calf operation with both backgrounding and finishing businesses. He said cow-calf producers can expect to benefit from wheat based DDG feeds when they become widely available.
“Affordable, high quality and consistent feeds will attract a lot of producers to backgrounding,” he said.
Dennis Fuglerud of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association agreed.
“Producers will have some new options to remain competitive once more ethanol comes into production. First, the price will have to come down, but that should come with expanded production,” he said.
McKinnon presented his most recent research results at the Saskatoon conference.
He said wheat DDG can be used at levels from 10 to 20 percent in an as-fed ration, or between 16 and 32 percent as dry matter in the diet, replacing equal amounts of barley.
“There were no adverse effects on gain, intake, fat or ribeye development,” he said.
The research did show depressed feed intake and gain when DDG was fed at five percent of the ration or eight percent on a dry matter basis.
“We are going to look at this some more to determine why, but it appears you don’t want to include it below 10 percent (as fed),” he said.
Calves in the trials received 16.8 pounds per day of dry matter and had a feed efficiency ratio, feed divided by gain, of 6.35:1. Calves in the control group gained an average of 2.7 lb. per day. At DDG inclusion rates of 10, 15 and 20 percent, the calves gained 2.6, 2.8 and 2.8 lb. per day respectively. Dry matter intakes were 17, 17.6 and 17.5 lb. per day.
“It showed us that wheat DDGs are a great feed source,” said McKinnon.
When included in the finishing phase of beef production, DDG performed equally well without any reduced performance at the lowest inclusion rates.
At levels up to 23 percent of the dry matter diet there were no adverse effects on animal performance.
“Better than that. Through day 56 we got improved gains over the control (group) that paralleled the inclusion rate increases,” said McKinnon.
Wheat-based DDG feed was equal to or outperformed grain barley in the ration.
“We saw no animal health or carcass quality issues with even very high rates of inclusion in the ration,” said McKinnon.
Cattle in the trials were on finishing rations for 115 days. Those fed 20 percent DDG rations reached a preshrunk market weight of 1,375 lb. in 111 days.
Inclusion rates of 10 percent took 120 days and 15 percent 115, which was similar to the control group consuming barley.
The results of the trial showed that the cattle did not respond to the additional bypass or crude proteins in the DDG compared to barley.
“But on the upside, we didn’t see any loss in feed conversion efficiencies either. From that we can gather that, in this study at least, that DDG has similar energy density to barley grain. A very high quality source (of energy),” said McKinnon.
Carcass lean yields were 61 percent with no difference between the cattle fed DDG and barley. Ribeye and marbling were equal. Each feed yielded the same percentage of dark cutters or B4 cattle, said McKinnon.
“There are some reports of carcass problems with corn DDG when used at higher rates. We didn’t see any of those with the wheat product.”
The trial experimented with rates that reached 60 percent, but extreme rates cause elevated protein and phosphorus levels in the manure, creating potential environmental issues.
“You also reach a point when the animals stop performing as well, just like other feeds, and it just isn’t economic to feed at those rates,” he said.
