Last month I presented some general information on the nutrient composition of bourbon wet distillers grains. Previously in Off The Hoof, pricing of wet co-products was also covered with respect to adjusting for moisture content and this is critical as the moisture content can vary impacting the price one could pay in relationship to other feedstuffs. Wet bourbon distillers grains are certainly a viable, quality feedstuff that can be utilized within the diets of beef cattle. Looking for older research on using bourbon distillery feed co-products, I found some interesting history dating back some 150+ years. I thought I would share a bit of this with you below.
Utilization of spent grains and thin stillage or slop is not a new concept. In fact, the potential of distillery by-product feeds to reduce production costs was widely recognized by the fermentation industry. In the well known Henry and Morrison Feeds and Feeding sixteenth edition published in 1916, the authors cite Kentucky station reports with respect to feeding slop to finishing cattle along with 3 lbs of cottonseed meal and 10-15 lbs of hay or straw. They also make the following statement with respect to the use of dried distillers grains for dairy cows “This rather bulky feed is one of the best high-protein concentrates for dairy cows, from 2 to 4 lbs. per head daily being usually fed.” In a 1953 Sewage and Industrial Wastes article written by Boruff and Blaine, the authors state “During low production periods there is a great demand for distillers feeds, because replacements are usually in short supply and more costly.” According to articles published in the early 1900’s, many of the distilleries had built feeding facilities and/or dairies near their plants. In 1945, Black, Ellis and Garrigus presented their findings of feeding slop to finishing cattle derived from different grain bills in the Journal of Animal Science which was collaborative work with a Louisville distillery. These authors reported that stillage could be used as the major source of dry matter in finishing diets for cattle when 5 lbs of hay was offered daily. These researchers were actually investigating vitamin A deficiencies occurring when wheat was included in the mash bill reducing the amount of carotenoids in the spent grains.
As with anything new, a lack of knowledge on how to properly utilize these feeds resulted in distillery coproducts getting a bad reputation by association with poor animal husbandry. In the mid-1800’s the New York Times reported the health departments were seeking to ban the use of slop from the diets of dairy cows and accomplished this in New York in the late 1800’s. Cincinnati followed with a ban in the early 1900’s. However, in some instances this ban was short-lived as the milk quality issues were pointed out to be more related to sanitary conditions rather than the feed. Adjustments in diets to ensure adequate
roughage was offered to livestock became a requirement.
Our understanding of ruminant nutrition has come far since the mid-1800’s. Even though distilleries have been producing these similar feeds for 150+ years, we continue to investigate their feeding value, storage and utilization. Today, research has focused more on the utilization of corn-based fuel ethanol coproducts such as stillage, condensed solubles (evaporated stillage), and distillers grains. Since slop or thin stillage is still used widely around many of the bourbon distillery plants in Kentucky, we’ll briefly discuss recent research regarding the utilization of similar products.
Michigan researchers studied the use of condensed solubles in grain-based finishing diets (Rust et al., 1990). These condensed solubles were not the same as the current condensed solubles marketed which have undergone partial evaporation resulting in much higher dry matter concentrations. These researchers obtained thin stillage from a local plant, allowed the solids to settle for 12 hours, removed the liquid that separated from the top and had a product that was 7.6% DM, 34.6% CP, and 22.8% ether extract or fat.
When offered free choice without access to water, steers had similar rates of gain and better feed efficiency than steers not consuming solubles. In this work, cattle without access to water consumed about 49 lbs of condensed solubles or about 5.2% of their body weight. Fisher and coworkers (1999) investigated the use of wheat derived thin stillage for growing and finishing cattle diets. The thin stillage contained on average 6.7% dry matter, 38-42% crude protein, 6.1-9.0% fat, 33.0-39.6% NDF and only 7.0-7.9% ADF. They diluted the thin stillage with water to obtain dry matter concentrations in the thin stillage of 2%, 4% and 6.7% (non-diluted) which was offered ad libitum along with a basal diet. Cattle were fed a 60:40 concentrate to forage basal diet during the growing period. Thin stillage consumption in this work was approximately 44-56 lb/d as-fed or approximately 6% of average body weight. There was a substitution for dry matter intake in which increased dry matter intake of the stillage led to less of the concentrate forage diet being consumed. Daily gains and overall feed efficiency were similar across the treatments during both the growing and finishing periods. Researchers investigating the use of thin stillage from wheat as a replacement for water in grazing cattle observed gains that were 53% greater or 3 lbs/d versus 2 lbs/d (Ojowi et al., 1996). These grazing cattle consumed 48 liters of thin stillage daily which is 12.7 gallons or 108 lbs using 8.5 lbs/gallon. This was approximately 14% of body weight and much greater than that observed in the previous work when cattle were consuming grain-based diets. This recent research supports the earlier research conducted on the use of stillage as a viable feedstuff in beef cattle diets.
It is important to note that in most of the recent research stillage is not the primary ingredient offered to growing and finishing cattle. Rather stillage was a portion of the daily dry matter consumed.
Nutritionists’ recommendations are to provide a diet that provides a nutritionally balanced diet that allows for good growth, efficient gains with little risk of nutritional disorders. Thus, producers are cautioned when using these feedstuffs and it is suggested that they contact a nutritionist or their Extension agent for more information for feeding these products. Dr. Gaskill at the University of Kentucky Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center in 2009 reported on a case in which ethanol intoxication resulted from the mixing of a liquid feedstuff with a large amount of fermentable carbohydrates with slop and then fed to cattle. A secondary fermentation resulted in the production of ethanol with the feed containing 2,731 mg/dl of ethanol. The result was 25 dead animals and 40 exhibiting clinical symptoms of ethanol intoxication. A rare and unusual event, but one that none-the-less provides a warning for using these products. Here’s to green grass for all of July!
Source: Dr. Jeff Lehmkuhler, Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, University of Kentucky