Distillers grains

[boondocks]

Hi all,
As a newbie I am trying to learn more about possible supplements to our grass/hay. (Although we are grass-fed, we are open to experimentation). I have been reading a little bit about distillers grains (and found this interesting write-up: http://msue.anr.msu.edu/uploads/236/585 ... Calves.pdf

If anyone uses this to supplement hay that is perhaps lower quality, I would appreciate any thoughts. I guess (from the article) you can just give it to them unlimited but would want to balance it out and account for sulfur and phosphorus (to make sure they don't get too much).

Am I getting the (very rough) gist of it? Anything else to consider? I don't know that we have any ethanol plants nearby; can you get it from breweries? We do have those....

Thanks!

 

[TexasBred]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

 

[skyhightree1]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

Ease them into either of those two or you will have some serious Mudd butt going on.

 

[Bigfoot]

I supplement it to my cows, towards the tail end of winter. Probably feed 5 or 6 pounds a day, while I'm doing it. I doubt there is any concentrate that you want to feed free choice.

I also feed it to anything I am backgrounding.

 

[John SD]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

An exception to allow "free choice" feeding would be if you mixed in salt as a limiter :idea: I did this with cracked corn/DDG I bought at the local feed store. Then I mixed in salt and sometimes mineral. You want to plan to err on the safe side to start with.

I think I started at 50/50 mix of CC/DDG and salt and eventually ended up using about 20% salt 80% CC/DDG in the ration. Fed it free choice in empty SmartLic and Crystalyx half barrels.

Always have an ample supply of good water available.

No experience with feeding wet product.

 

[TexasBred]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

An exception to allow "free choice" feeding would be if you mixed in salt as a limiter :idea: I did this with cracked corn/DDG I bought at the local feed store. Then I mixed in salt and sometimes mineral. You want to plan to err on the safe side to start with.

I think I started at 50/50 mix of CC/DDG and salt and eventually ended up using about 20% salt 80% CC/DDG in the ration. Fed it free choice in empty SmartLic and Crystalyx half barrels.

Always have an ample supply of good water available.
Most feed stores sell that down here except they substitute cottonseed meal for the DDG and use about 1/4 salt, 1/4 cottonseed meal/ and 1/2 corn. Makes a pretty good feed to supplement hay
No experience with feeding wet product.

 

[boondocks]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

Ease them into either of those two or you will have some serious Mudd butt going on.

TB and Sky, it seems like dry might be easier...Thanks for the advice re easing them in and confirming no free choice. This is probably a longer-term thing for us. Just trying to think out loud, since hay costs are killing us

 

[boondocks]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

An exception to allow "free choice" feeding would be if you mixed in salt as a limiter :idea: I did this with cracked corn/DDG I bought at the local feed store. Then I mixed in salt and sometimes mineral. You want to plan to err on the safe side to start with.

I think I started at 50/50 mix of CC/DDG and salt and eventually ended up using about 20% salt 80% CC/DDG in the ration. Fed it free choice in empty SmartLic and Crystalyx half barrels.

Always have an ample supply of good water available.
Most feed stores sell that down here except they substitute cottonseed meal for the DDG and use about 1/4 salt, 1/4 cottonseed meal/ and 1/2 corn. Makes a pretty good feed to supplement hay
No experience with feeding wet product.

Thanks for the "recipes" and advice. We have an empty crystalyx tub I was going to put a little corn in anyway. Maybe I will look around for some dry DDG.
Related question: for calves during weaning, we have always just given hay and good minerals, but this time it is colder, so maybe might try a little corn too, just for some extra energy. Would you try whole or cracked for calves, or does it matter? I do know not to give them much. Thanks!

 

[piedmontese]

I have been feeding wet barley from beer for 6 yrs now. I pick it up in plastic 55 gal drums. We normally get about 15 a week and feed it free choice. I feed it year around and haven't had a bit of trouble with it. I feed it to a group of 25 pairs normally.

 

[John SD]

Thanks for the "recipes" and advice. We have an empty crystalyx tub I was going to put a little corn in anyway. Maybe I will look around for some dry DDG.
Related question: for calves during weaning, we have always just given hay and good minerals, but this time it is colder, so maybe might try a little corn too, just for some extra energy. Would you try whole or cracked for calves, or does it matter? I do know not to give them much. Thanks!

I prefer cracked corn, but that is the way it comes from my feed guy. He get it delivered to overhead bins. I'd get a couple tons of it in the 8' combo box on the pickup, park the pickup under the shed and just feed off of it.

DDG by itself is kind of fluffy and flaky and likes to blow around on windy days. Cracked corn adds some "body" to the ration. I have even fed straight out of the back of the pickup to cows on native buffalo grass sod and they cleaned it up pretty well.

 

[boondocks]

Thanks for the "recipes" and advice. We have an empty crystalyx tub I was going to put a little corn in anyway. Maybe I will look around for some dry DDG.
Related question: for calves during weaning, we have always just given hay and good minerals, but this time it is colder, so maybe might try a little corn too, just for some extra energy. Would you try whole or cracked for calves, or does it matter? I do know not to give them much. Thanks!

I prefer cracked corn, but that is the way it comes from my feed guy. He get it delivered to overhead bins. I'd get a couple tons of it in the 8' combo box on the pickup, park the pickup under the shed and just feed off of it.

DDG by itself is kind of fluffy and flaky and likes to blow around on windy days. Cracked corn adds some "body" to the ration. I have even fed straight out of the back of the pickup to cows on native buffalo grass sod and they cleaned it up pretty well.

Thanks, very interesting! Saw a guy selling some on CL tonight

 

[jedstivers]

I'm feeding corn and ddg to yearling calves and just a little to cows.
Cows are getting mostly corn.
Calves are fine on whole and it's better on under 5wt. Cows are ok on whole but cracked or ground is better but might not be worth the added cost.
Here's some of the diffrent rations I'm feeding. I'm not going to try and explain all of them though. Some are to push hard, some are for when they have almost no grass ect.

Calf feed recipe

Feed recipe

400 calf
DDG .00839% 3.356 lbs/ hd
Corn .013652%5.4608 lbs/ hd
Hay 4 lbs

500 lb calf
DDG .008% 4 lbs/ head
Corn .01228% 6.14 lbs / head
5.2 lbs hay

600 lb calf
DDG .0067475% 4.0485 lbs/ head
Corn .0134% 8.04 lbs/ head
5.7 lbs hay
Hay
600 lb calf on grass
.00393233 % 2.3595 lbs DDG/ hd
.0095743% 5.7446 lbs corn/ hd

700 lb calf
DDG .00499%3.5 lbs
Corn .014% 9.8 lbs
6 lbs hay




Replacement heifers
2 parts corn
I part DDG
1/4 lb AMPT




5 gallon bucket holds 35 lbs corn
5 gallon bucket holds 22 lbs DDG

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Very informative Jed.

 

[TexasBred]

Are you looking at feedin the wet product or the dry distillers grain? Regardless you don't want to feed either "free choice" especially the dry distillers grain.

Ease them into either of those two or you will have some serious Mudd butt going on.

TB and Sky, it seems like dry might be easier...Thanks for the advice re easing them in and confirming no free choice. This is probably a longer-term thing for us. Just trying to think out loud, since hay costs are killing us

Yessir and although it is more expensive at least you're not buying a lot of water. Hope all goes well with you.

 

[Lucky_P]

Been limit-feeding hay and distiller's grains throughout the winter feeding period for the past 9 winters.
Started out doing it one year when there was NO hay available for hundreds of miles around. Other folks were paying $90/roll for cornstalks and CRP residue cut in late October(I saw some that had ATV-size piles of 1-2" diameter honey locust trees rolled up in them and left over once the neighbor's cows picked out what they would/could eat).

We bought in hay from SD & OK...paid more than I said I'd ever pay... but allowed access to the hay feeders for ~1 hr/day... allowed the cows to get ~ 10 lb/hd... then fed 12-13#/h modified distiller's grain product. Cows came through that winter in pretty good shape.
We've continued - with variations in amounts fed - ever since.

We've since switched over to DDG...lower moisture content, stores better... and as my farm manager(wife) has run the numbers... for the amounts we're feeding, it's the least expensive supplement. She has a ration calculator... can adjust factors, based on cost/availability, etc. Past few years, cows have been getting 25-30# hay per day and about 3-5# DDG/day.
Like Bigfoot, we also feed DDG to weanling calves that we may have up, and to cows/heifers that are up being bred.
It's like crack to cows... you can lead 'em almost anywhere with it.

 

[Lucky_P]

boondocks,
Winter of 2013-2014 here in KY/TN... a cool, wet preceding spring and summer resulted in most hay produced in this area being really poor quality - overmature when it was finally harvested, with low crude protein, low digestibility - to the point that large numbers of cows and calves essentially were starving to death while eating all of this minimally-nutritious hay that they could take in... and subsequently, many herds experienced calf mortality rates approaching 50% in the subsequent late winter/early spring calving season.
Rumors were going around about a 'pathogen in the hay'. It wasn't a pathogen, it was a near-complete absence of sufficient nutrients to carry cows through the winter.

When I started seeing solid young cows coming through the diagnostic lab in mid-to-late December, starved out - rather than in late Feb/early March... when those starve-out cases usually begin making their way in ... I looked at my own cows... and they weren't in much better shape. My hay was crappy, too. We doubled time at the hay feeders (went from 2hrs to 4 hrs/day) and doubled the amount of DDG we were feeding. It was costly to do, but they all pulled through, calf survival was not an issue, and most cows bred back.

 

[boondocks]

Thanks for the good advice, all! Lucky, your comments on this topic (including on the earlier other thread (about cows starving in the land of "plenty" due to poor hay)) is something we've taken to heart. We have made sure they have a good Crystalyx out all winter and are thinking ahead for next winter as well. Luckily, compared to last year we have had a mild winter. Hit about 70 today. Last year it was below zero still! Bad news is we are way under on precip...