Int’l - U of A Recommends Strategies for Maximizing Feeding Value of Low Quality Grains

Researchers at the University of Alberta are recommending a combination of strategies for maximizing the feeding value of low quality grains. As a result of unfavorable weather conditions much of the grain produced in 2004 was of particularly low quality, high in fibre and low in digestible energy. University of Alberta Feed Industry Research Chair Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra says digestible energy contents can vary by as much as 20 percent. "First of all we need to confirm that the barley or wheat sample is indeed of low quality and we can do so by doing lab analysis and confirming that it's higher than average in fibre content. Once we've confirmed that, with regards to feed processing we should make sure that we grind these low quality grain samples at least to the average particle size that we should be aiming for, which is about 650 to 700 microns, and preferably even slightly smaller than that. In that way we can partially open up the fibre fraction and thereby still achieve a reasonable amount of energy digestibility. A second thing that could be done is supplementation of enzymes to the diets and these supplemental enzymes should be enzymes that degrade the fibre fraction. We're looking at beta-glucanase in the case of barley and xylanase in the case of low quality wheat. The third thing that we can do is make sure we have the diets reformulated properly so we take the low quality grain, which is likely to be up to 60 to 70 percent of the diet, into consideration and add for example a little bit of additional canola oil to the diet to ensure that we reach a target digestible energy content." Dr. Zijlstra says producers should be able to purchase these lower quality grains at a discount and then utilize processing to achieve the digestible energy contents that will maintain a predictable performance.