Lighter wheat still good livestock feed

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Published: October 24, 2002

Lightweight wheat has a bad reputation and few buyers want to tangle

with it.

But “it’s got more value than what the millers and brewers give it,”

said Lee Whittington of the Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon.

“As far as a pig’s concerned, there’s still a lot of energy in it.”

Millers have little interest in wheat that weighs less than 60 pounds

per bushel because of its perceived low level of starch.

The same attitude is common with livestock feeders, who often believe

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that wheat weighing below 58 lb. per bu. is nothing but fibre and

doesn’t contain enough energy to feed an animal.

Livestock feeders need to be careful with low bushel weight wheat,

Whittington said, but they should not ignore it, especially because

there might be a lot of cheap lightweight wheat across the Prairies

this winter.

“Bushel weight is a pretty poor indication of the quality of wheat or

barley,” said Whittington.

Light bushel weight wheat does have more fibre than heavier wheat, but

there can be substantial energy too. The swine centre began studying

light bushel weight grains in 1993, after an early August snowstorm

damaged much of the prairie crop. Feeding trials showed surprising

results.

“We had bushel weights everywhere from 38 to 60 lb.,” said Whittington.

“There was absolutely no relation between the bushel weight and the

average daily gain of the pig.”

Very low bushel weights tend to reveal low energy levels because the

first part of the grain head to develop is the fibrous outer shell,

which is then filled by nutrients. Low bushel weights tend to occur

when something limits the filling of the kernel.

Whittington said this doesn’t mean the energy level is too low to feed

pigs, but to use it, feeders need to test the fibre and then calculate

the energy level of the wheat. The Prairie Swine Centre has a

fibre-energy formula. For a link to the centre’s website, go to

www.producer.com and click on news links.

“As long as we know what we are dealing with, we can formulate around

it.”

Some rations don’t need high energy levels, such as a gestation ration,

Whittington said. Lightweight wheat easily fits into this ration.

But a pig feeder would probably use less lightweight wheat in a grower

ration, which is fed to feeder pigs. And in a starter ration, which is

fed to recently weaned pigs, the feeder might not be able to use any at

all.

The key to using low bushel weight wheat is to take pig nutrition

seriously. If a producer knows how much energy, amino acids and

vitamins a pig needs, “he can get there by a number of different

routes,” Whittington said. “At times you can take advantage of some

pretty deeply discounted wheat because it appears to have no value (to

some people).”

Wheat is less commonly used in the cattle feeding business because it

is harder on a bovine’s gut. But it can still be used as part of a

ration. With low bushel weight wheat likely to be the cheapest feed

source on the Prairies this winter, many farmers are likely to consider

it, said John McKinnon of the Western Beef Development Centre in

Saskatoon.

“Sprouted grain is very usable. It’s probably your cheapest source of

energy this year,” said McKinnon.

“Until bushel weight drops off markedly, you don’t see a big drop in

the performance of cattle. What you see is slightly higher intakes.

They eat a little bit more but gain the same.”

McKinnon said Agriculture Canada studies have shown that 56 lb. wheat

can still contain 102 percent of the energy of a bushel of barley, and

even 40 lb. wheat contains 90 percent of a barley bushel’s energy.

Sprouted wheat may also be affordable and should be considered this

year.

“People think there should be a big discount on sprouted grains just

because they perceive that some of the carbohydrates have been used up,

but even with severely sprouted grain the performance does not suffer.”

The challenge for cattle feeders is to use wheat in a way that will not

hurt the cattle. Levels that are too high can cause liver abscesses or

put cattle off feed.

McKinnon said producers planning to introduce wheat into cattle rations

should do so slowly, adding 10 percent increments into the diet every

few days, and should not push it beyond half of the grain portion of

the diet.

“With cattle, you don’t want to do anything suddenly,” he said.

“Always give them time to adapt.”

Both McKinnon and Whittington said farmers need to test for fusarium

and other toxins in light feed.

About the author

Ed White

Ed White

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