Ethanol co-products offer feed alternatives for hog producers

Thursday, February 26, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by KATE PROCTER

Government mandated ethanol production remains one of the biggest factors influencing feed costs in the livestock sector in Ontario. A University of Illinois researcher suggests that feeding co-products can help producers reduce feed costs and bring profitability back to an industry that has suffered from disease, high feed costs and low market prices.

 “Ethanol production will continue to increase because the mandate in the United States is to increase ethanol use,” Dr. Hans H. Stein, University of Illinois, told members of the Liquid Swine Feeding Association at a meeting held in Stratford on Tuesday.  Total feed costs in the U.S. are now more than $30 US per pig and the main cause of this is ethanol production, said Stein.

By 2016, it is estimated that 140 million tones of corn, almost half of the total U.S. production, will be consumed by ethanol, he added.

But the news is not all bad. Stein predicted that different co-products will be produced through manufacturing ethanol and pork producers must learn how to use them in order to be competitive. Starch and fat will cost more in the future, but more protein and fibre will be available.

 “Fibre may be the only thing we can afford to feed our pigs, so we better learn how to do it,” said Stein. Distillers dried grains with soluble (DDGS), dried distillers grain (DDG) and high protein dried distillers grain (HP DDG) are all byproducts of ethanol production. All contain more fibre than corn alone and producers must be cautious when determining the value of these byproducts.

All byproducts are not created equal and there are no set standards across the industry for what the products contain. For example, oil can be removed from DDGS to be used for biodiesel production, resulting in a lower-energy product and a buyer would not necessarily be told this.

When adding DDGS to a ration, Stein explained that inclusion rates vary between animals at different stages of life. The researchers recommend that sows in gestation should not exceed 50 per cent in their ration, while sows in lactation should not exceed 30 per cent.  They saw no difference in performance in gestating sows at this level of inclusion, but did see an increase in litter size in the second farrowing cycle. This is consistent with data showing that sometimes an increase in fibre can result in an increase in litter size.

Nursery pigs fed rations containing varying amounts of DDGS showed no difference in average daily gain (ADG).  Stein recommended feeding up to 30 per cent in the nursery diet, beginning two to three weeks post wean. These diets should be formulated based on digestible amino acids.

Earlier research into grow finish diets for pigs was not positive about including DDGS. More recent research in 2008 conducted by Stein concluded that if the digestibility of the amino acids is used to formulate rations, it is possible to feed diets that include DDGS to finishing pigs without affecting ADG or feed conversion.
While more study is required, Stein pointed out that feeding DDGS to finishing pigs may have some impact on carcass characteristics, in particular, belly fat firmness. Other aspects of feeding DDGS that may present challenges to producers include the way feed flows, increase in diet bulk, intestinal health, manure volume and nutrients in the manure. 

“Savings have been quite dramatic when we use DDGS in the diet,” said Stein. He has developed a “DDGS calculator” that allows producers to enter different inclusion rates and different ingredient prices and it will calculate overall feed cost. This can be found at www.livestocktrail.uiuc.edu/porknet . “We do believe with current savings, it is a no brainer to use DDGS in the Midwest,” he said. BF