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Ovine nutrition: Distillers provide sheep alternative |
High feed costs encouraged Joel Morrical to look into other options for feeding his ewes.
Like many other livestock producers, he looked to the booming ethanol industry´s byproducts for quality protein supplementation and an opportunity to cut costs.
In December, Morrical began feeding his 100-ewe flock a mix of ground corn stalks and modified wet distillers at 50 percent dry matter.
“With the current hay prices and the price of corn — and I don´t expect those to change anytime soon — I thought if I could figure out how to do this right, we could save a lot of money,” he says.
“It worked fairly well once we figured the best way to feed it and handle it.”
Morrical farms with his father, Dan Morrical, Iowa State Extension sheep specialist, who says concerns about hay and corn prices have acted as a catalyst for interest in feeding eth-anol co-product, he says.
“People have become very aware of the ration. Everybody has been calling me because it is so critical,” Dan says. “Everybody wants the cheapest ration.”
While feed costs are major concern driving interest in distillers, the costs for co-products are also rising. Dan notes distillers prices have jumped 70 percent recently.
“It´s not the bargain we thought it would be. We thought with all these ethanol plants we would have more than we need,” he says. “That hasn´t happened.”
Still, Dan encouraged Joel to incorporate distillers in his ration because the farm has limited ground.
So far, feed costs seem have been less than the traditional corn-and-roughage alternative.
“Compared to the traditional diet, it´s probably saving us 50 percent in our diet costs,” Dan says.
The distillers-incorporated ration is affordable because there is little creep-feeding expense, and it cuts roughage and hay expense. Plus, sheep adapt well to the taste, he says.
“As far as palatability goes, the sheep like to eat it,” Dan says.
He says feeding sheep ethanol co-products can offer cost savings, but there are challenges, too.
“The real challenges for sheep people are most people are not big enough to handle wet (distillers), and most don´t have the mixing capabilities,” Dan says.
He suggests partnering with a neighboring livestock operation that is capable of handling the large orders typically required of the feedstuffs.
The Morricals invested in a used grain-mixing wagon and partnered with a neighboring beef producer to secure their needs for a small amount of distillers.
“It´s been a little bit more labor intensive than expected,” Joel notes.
He mixes feed every couple of days with a skid loader and pays attention to quality.
“It doesn´t have near the shelf life as corn or hay,” Joel says.
When mixing, sulfur and protein content are concerns, so producers should monitor their ration, Dan advises.
He suggests up to 25 percent dry distillers in lamb rations and close to 50 percent as fed wet distillers for ewes or 30-35 percent on a dry basis.
According to a South Dakota State University (SDSU) study, dried distillers grain with solubles (DDGS) can be an economical and palatable protein source for finishing lamb diets.
However, SDSU Extension researchers found distillers-incorporated diets require more management and labor than traditional pasture and grain-finished operations.
Producer needed to carefully mix the appropriate ratio of ethanol co-products and grain — the SDSU study mixed DDGs with cracked corn or pelleted soy hulls.
Mixing can be risky in self-feeders due to diet sorting and animal consumption patterns.
SDSU researchers fed DDGS mixed with cracked corn or pelleted soy hulls in self-feeders.
The crude protein level for these diets was formulated at 13.5 percent as-fed basis or 15.1 percent dry matter basis. The diets were formulated for lambs from 80 pounds to finish.
Lamb-finishing phase average daily gain was .75 of a pound per day and dry-matter intake was about 4 percent of animal body weight.
Growth performance did not differ by diet type and fit industry expectations.
The residual feed remaining in the feeder was removed weekly. Researchers factored in the costs from feed wastage.
Fewer pounds of residual feed were removed for the lambs offered the pelleted soy hull-mixed diet compared with the cracked corn mix diet, averaging .25 and .42 of a pound per lamb per day, respectively.
Whether feeding ewes or finishing lambs, the Morricals believe they have reduced their feed costs by feeding ethanol co-products.
“I think there are opportunities to save money if you can figure out how to make it work for your operation,” Joel says.
Published 04/29/2008
Source: Iowa Farmer Today
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