Feeding Corn Co-products to Beef and DDGS to Swine

January - March 2003

Dennis L. DeWitt , livestock field specialist
Dr. Donald Lewis , agriculture and natural resources extension director

Situation
More and more ethanol co-products are available for livestock feed because of the rapid growth of the ethanol industry in Iowa . The three main co-products are distiller grains, solubles and condensed distillers solubles. They can be wet, dried or modified depending on the manufacturing process. Since most on the farm swine feeding systems are almost exclusively designed for dry feed, Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) is the feed of choice. For beef cattle, wet corn gluten feed and wet distillers grains have particularly high values and can serve as an excellent source of protein, energy and minerals.

Response
Midwest Grain Processors ethanol plant near Lakota, Iowa, Kossuth County Extension, Iowa Pork Industry Center and Iowa Beef Center teamed up for a full day program about feeding corn co-products to beef and DDGS to swine.

Impact
A total of 61 people attended the meeting. Seven swine producers finishing 19,200 market hogs a year completed the after-meeting survey. Six out of seven gained information about feeding value, diet formulation, advantages and disadvantages, health benefits, cost comparison and impact on manure nutrients. Five out of seven are planning to try feeding swine and four out of seven benefited quite a lot from the program with a $2,000 benefit.

Twenty beef feedlots, representing 10,830 head marketed yearly, and 11 beef cow herds having 527 beef cows, returned the survey. Most producers gained the most knowledge from learning about ethanol production and comparing the cost of wet and dry products. Thirteen out of 14 people gained some benefit from attending the program. Eleven producers have already used a corn co-product with nine more indicating they would try it in the near future. Six beef producers benefited from the program with a $3,200 benefit

Page last updated: July 9, 2006
Page maintained by Linda Schultz, lschultz@iastate.edu