Barley and DDG's

Farm and Ranch August 20, 2010 A by-product of the corn ethanol industry is distillers dried grains or DDG’s. In North Dakota there has been research done on using DDG’s with barley. Dr. Vern Anderson has been involved in the research.

Anderson: “The most recent study is in receiving rations, the diet the calves are fed right after they are weaned. And we used barley as the base ration at about 50% of the ration, and added some forage and increasing levels of distillers grains. Distillers grains at 12% of the diet really made a difference in the intake and the gain. Twenty-four and 36% we saw no additional advantage. So a little bit of distillers grains in a barley based diet with some forage and appropriate supplements, those calves gained extremely well.”

Dr. Anderson explains why barley and DDG’s work so well together.

Anderson: “These cattle are capable of growing very fast and if we only provide rumen degradable protein to them, which barley has a lot of, it is very fermentable and digestible in the rumen, we are missing out on the opportunity for calves to gain to their genetic potential. So adding the undegradable protein fraction from distillers grains, and it is really our only source of this type of protein, and it is probably our least protein source at this time of any. So it has a lot of positive synergy with barley.”

The bottom line says Anderson is that adding DDG’s makes barley more palatable and easier to feed.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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