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Utilization of Corn Co-products in the Beef Industry

Last Updated: March 23, 2010

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Fact Sheet Written by:

Galen E. Erickson, Virgil R. Bremer, Terry J. Klopfenstein, Aaron Stalker, and Rick Rasby

Department of Animal Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

And Provided by:

University of Nebraska-Lincoln http://beef.unl.edu


Two primary types of milling processes currently exist, resulting in quite different feed products.The dry milling process produces distillers grains plus solubles (DGS), and the wet milling process produces corn gluten feed (CGF).These feeds can be marketed as wet feeds, or they can be dried and marketed as either dry corn gluten feed (DCGF) or dry distillers grains (DDG) with or without solubles.

For the purposes of this article, wet corn gluten feed (WCGF), wet distillers grains plus solubles (WDGS), DCGF, and dried distillers grains plus solubles (DDGS) will be discussed.The term DGS will be used for undifferentiated discussion about WDGS and DDGS. The majority of ethanol plant expansions are dry milling plants that produce DGS; however, an increase in supply of WCGF is also expected. Therefore, these feeds may be very attractive for beef producers to use as feed sources.This article will focus on the production, composition, feeding values, and economics of using these co-products in feedlot and forage situations. Management strategies will be discussed as well, including grain processing and roughage levels when these co-products are used in feedlot diets, feeding combinations of WDGS and WCGF, and manure management. Forage fed situations will be covered primarily with dried co-products as this is a common application for both energy and protein supplementation in many forage feeding situations. Storage methods for wet products and manure management from co-products feeding will also be explained.

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