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UNL provides online spreadsheetTool helps determine cost/benefit of using distillers grains Nebraska University of Nebraska-Lincoln specialists have developed a spreadsheet to help feedlot managers calculate costs and benefits of feeding ethanol co-products in their own operations, said Terry Klopfenstein, UNL professor of animal science. Klopfenstein said that feedlots save a $40 per ton processing fee when they use wet distillers grains. That also reduces the fossil fuels needed to produce them. Cattle like the wet product better and the feed value is probably higher, he added. Cattle gain weight faster and more efficiently with a ration containing about 40 percent distillers grains rather than corn, Klopfenstein said. Those gains gradually disappear when feeders increase the proportion beyond 40 percent, though. Feed conversion also improves dramatically with distillers grains supplements. That may get better with even higher levels of co-product, Klopfenstein said. Carcass quality seems to be about the same as it is with a corn ration, but the process seems to be shorter. There's been some experimentation with removing fat from distillers grains to make biodiesel, Klopfenstein said. That probably wouldn't have much effect on the ration's performance, but it might become detrimental over a certain level. Feeding co-products wet allows producers to use lower quality roughage, Klopfenstein said. Cattle consume it better. They don't sort the roughage out. "Now producers can feed cornstalks instead of alfalfa hay, so we can reduce costs," he said. "So as more alfalfa acres get converted to corn, maybe we can make this substitution." "Because we took the starch and corn out of the diet, we originally thought we would have control of acidosis and liver abscess," Klopfenstein said. "Our experiments show that we still need to include Rumensin and Tylan to control these conditions, though." Klopfenstein reminded producers that hauling wet distillers grains is hauling a lot of water, so distance will be a big factor in the cost/benefit ratio. That moisture doesn't have feed value, so it's critically important that the producer accounts for it in formulating rations. To access the computer Excel spreadsheet for calculating costs and benefits, cattle feeders should go to http://beef.unl.edu and click on "By-product Feeds" in the left menu. On the next menu, producers should click on "Cattle CODE and open the Excel spreadsheet. Read the introduction and click on the "User" sheet at the bottom to fill in the feedlot information and calculate your own costs and benefits. As corn prices increase and availability decreases because of competition with ethanol production, cattle feeders can offset some cost by using co-products of that same industry. 8/18/08 Date: 8/13/08
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