Canada - U of Alberta Research Recommends Against High Inclusion of DDGS in Swine Diets

A scientist with the University of Alberta is cautioning against the over inclusion of dried distillers grain in swine rations. Expanded wheat based ethanol production in western Canada is resulting in higher volumes of wheat dried distillers grain available as feed. Because starch is removed during fermentation, dried distillers grains contain concentrations of other nutrients such as fibre, fat and protein. University of Alberta feed industry research chair Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra notes the high fibre content makes cattle the primary market but, with increased supply and reduced cost, it's now also cost competitive in swine diets. "Overall, still the number one concern that pork producers would have is maintaining their performance variables so, in order to make sure that that happens, two things you would look at. One of them would be digestible nutrient content and then the second thing would be, do you see a reduction in performance due to changes in feed intake? Some of the research that we've done in our own laboratory seemed to indicate pigs would be willing to eat at least some wheat dried distillers grain in their rations. There might be some concern for the amount of protein and amino acid degradation that has taken place so we're looking forward to do a little more work in this area, making sure we have that properly characterized and making sure we do not see a reduction in performance. What I would recommend right now is don't go too high with wheat dried distillers grain in your rations." Dr. Zijlstra notes, with current ingredient prices, there's not a need use high amounts of dried distillers grain but, when you consider cost per unit of lean gain, in the future the increased feedgrain costs and reduced by-product cost, might affect the ingredient mix.