MSU Extension Beef

- Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the fourth educational series as part of the MSU Extension feedlot series this winter. I'm Jeannine Schweihofer, and I'm the senior meat quality extension educator, and I will be facilitating the meeting tonight because Dr. Jerad Jaborek is our speaker tonight. Jerad is our MSU Extension beef feedlot systems educator and he's originally from central Wisconsin. And then he got his master's and PhD at the Ohio State. And he's going to talk to us tonight about does the high price of distillers grain work in your feedlot ration. So, Jerad, I'll turn it over to you. - Thank you for the introduction, Jeannine. So like Jeannine said, tonight we're going to take some time and talk about high grain prices and what are some things you can do, or some alternatives that you can do to make them work or exclude them, or replace them in your feedlot ration. So with that, let's get started. So first I'd just like to say that all MSU Extension programs are open to everyone. So with that, we'll get started. First I want to give you guys a little background. Well, most of you already know what distillers grain is, for those who aren't exactly sure what it is, it's a cereal grain byproduct that's produced during the production of ethanol from corn. So this process includes three steps. A fermentation step, a distillation step, and then a dehydration step. So first with the fermentation step, this is where the starch and sugars are extracted from corn. And then we'll have a distillation step where the ethanol is extracted. And then lastly, we'll have some form of dehydration step which will result in, whether it's wet or modified, or our dry distillers products. So as many of you are well aware, our current grain price trends are going up. So I have a few figures here for a few different types of grain, just to orientate you to the figures, on our Y axis on the left we have the price, in this case, talking about corn. We have it in dollars per bushel, and then we have time. So the relative month across the X axis on the bottom. So a few months there from 2020 into our present time of 2021. So for corn, you can see that since about August or September the price of corn has been steadily increasing. About last week is where I got these prices, corn was at $5.38 cents per bushel. That puts corn at about $192.23 cents per ton. So corn, the corn price is typically used to set the price for alternative feeds in terms of energy. So, likewise, we have soybean meal, in this case our values on the Y axis are in dollars per ton. And here you kind of see similar trends since about August or September of last year. Price of soybean meal has also been increasing to a price of $421.70 cents per ton. So while corn sets the price for energy, soybean meal is typically used to set the price for proteins or alternative feeds that we would use to supply protein in our diets. And then the star of the show that a lot of people have been wondering about, distillers grain. Again, we have our price in dollars per ton on the Y axis on the left, and then we have time on the X axis, about a three year time period there from January of '18 all the way to January of '21 this year. So current price of distillers grain was about $238.50 cents per ton relative to the other prices. So you can see on the figure here that distillers grain will typically follow the corn price; however it may follow the protein market as well. So following soybean meal price, when our prices for gas are typically low. So I think we are seeing that a little bit here through the fall when our gas was a little bit lower. However, since about the first of the year, ethanol and gas prices have been on the steady rise. So now it's kind of getting in back into trend with our corn price. So a little bit of outlook. These are some prices that I was able to get off the CME website for soybean meal and corn in dollars per ton. So the future prices for each of these grains are less than the current prices. However, if you've been following the futures market at all, it's been steadily increasing. It seems like just about every day they're going up. So it's something to keep an eye on to see where they actually end up. We're constantly fluctuating. So because of these high grain prices, how's it going to impact feedlots or the beef industry? So, one thing that you will need to consider for your feedlot is what type or size of cattle are you going to buy? When making this decision, you're gonna have to think about, are you going to try to buy pounds? So buying larger cattle compared to lighter cattle. you're going to have to think about what is your cost of gain? Are you going to be able to raise, say, a smaller feeder calf, say 600 pounds, all the way up to what we would typically do, a larger feeder calf, or a yearling, for instance, at say 800 pounds? Is your cost of gain going to be more expensive than what it would cost to buy that animal? So in that case, you have to factor in, if you can raise the animal more cheaply than it is to buy it at, say, a heavier weight. So with that, when we see high grain prices we typically see more feedlots placing heavier cattle into their feedlot, and this ultimately results in a lower feeder calf price eventually. Another thing that you can consider is the use of cheaper feeds, so can you background your cattle for a longer period of time or put them on a growing diet? So a diet that's going to have a little less energy, but you're still able to capitalize on these cheaper feeds and get, you know, move along these animals in your feedlot at a cost of gain that works for you. So let's take a minute to talk about protein digestion. When we're thinking about balancing feedlot rations we try to balance them for a metabolizable protein requirements for these cattle, and the metabolizable protein requirements of cattle can be divided into rumen degradable protein, commonly referred to as RDP, sometimes degradable intake protein or and undegradable protein, which would be your RUP, or some people refer to this as undegradable intake protein or bypass protein. You may commonly hear that referred to as. So RDP, or your rumen degradable protein, is the protein that is broken down in the rumen. So in that first compartment of the stomach, into ammonia, and this is can be used by the rumen bacteria. So as the rumen bacteria are replicating, they can synthesize their own protein. And then we refer to this as microbial protein. So as that animal continues to pass the digesta, or the feed, throughout the stomach compartments, microbial protein and those microbes are passing along as well. So the animal can also use microbial protein as it passes along. So once that protein reaches the small intestine, the RUP, the rumen undegradable protein as well as the microbial protein that reaches the small intestine can be absorbed and used by the animal. And then the animal is also able to recycle some of this protein and use it later on as rumen degradable protein. So this is a figure that illustrates the nutrient requirements or the protein requirements of cattle. We have total protein in grams per day across the Y axis on the left-hand side, and then on the bottom or across the bottom, on the X axis we have live weight of those cattle. So we have a few different lines depending on what kind of average daily gain you're shooting for, growth rate you're shooting for in these cattle. The one thing you'll notice that as we're trying to achieve a greater growth rate, we need a little bit more protein for that animal. The animal's gonna need to consume more grams of protein per day. So we see typically here for, you can see it's almost about 400 pounds up to 800 pounds, the protein requirements seem to be increasing, and then they kind of plateau from 800 to about 1000 pounds. So in this figure, set up pretty similar, we have crude protein as a percentage in the diet on the left-hand side on the Y axis. And then on the right hand Y axis we have dry matter intake, which would be in pounds per day. So how much is that animal eating? And then on the X axis, across the bottom, we have live weight. So in the green bars, we have dry matter intake. Remember right-hand side is the numbers you want to look at. So as an animal begins to grow and becomes larger and reaches a heavier weight, we typically see a greater dry matter intake for that animal. So because of that, based on the previous figure I showed you, as a percentage in the diet, crude protein requirements for the animal are going to decrease as they become larger. So you can see, based on that line you can kind of see it has a downward slope. So we can typically, so as those animals are younger, typically we need higher protein diets. And then as they become larger, we need less protein. And then similar to the last figure, depending on what kind of growth rate you're shooting for, you'll need a little bit more protein, but you can see that say for a younger calf you're going to need protein that's up around 16%, but then as that animal grows and say you get closer to a thousand pounds, or you have that animal on a finishing ration, you can work around that 13%. So what are some of the feeds that we typically think of as protein sources or nitrogen sources for using in our feedlot rations? Well, a lot of people are using high moisture corn. However, you can see that's only got about 10% crude protein. Like one thing that I highlighted earlier is we can break up our protein into two different things called rumen degradable protein and rumen undegradable protein. So the amount of protein that is going to be digested in the rumen and available for the microbes and then the undegradable protein that is only available to the small intestine. And then we have total digestible nutrients which is an indicator of energy value. And then we have our net energy for maintenance and gain on the far right column there. So corn, you can see, has got our highest energy value relative to our other feeds. So it's mostly used as an energy feed, like I said earlier, and that's how it's priced. Corn silage is commonly used in a lot of the diets here in the thumb. Also a lower protein containing feed. One thing you'll notice here is it has a really high RDP value, so a lot of that protein that is available in corn silage is rumen degradable protein. So some other feeds that are going to have higher protein values. You can see, we have distiller's grain up around 30%. We have soybean meal up around 49%. Other feeds such as corn gluten meal, canola meal, sunflower meal, also have very high crude protein values. But then on the, you can also see their energy values on the far right side are not quite as high as corn or as great as corn, but each of these feeds also has a different RDP to RUP ratio that we need to ultimately consider. And one of the things that you notice is that for distillers grains, it has a relatively high RUP value relative to some of these other feeds, like soybean meal has a relatively high RDP value, meaning more of that protein from soybean meals gonna be digested or degradable in the rumen. And then lastly, one thing you'll, one item you'll notice here is urea. So we don't necessarily consider this a protein, but it's a nitrogen source, and it has a really high crude protein value. And all of this nitrogen is gonna be rumen degradable. So it's going to volatilize or be available in the rumen relatively quickly for that animal. Some other options of protein sources could be cottonseed meal, brewer's grains, peanut meal, fish meal, so there's other options out there as well. So let's take a second to talk about urea. So like I said, urea is not a protein source. So proteins are built of basic building blocks called amino acids and they're linked together by peptide bonds. And what happens is when they're broken apart, the amino acids can be available or they can be broken down into ammonia. And then ammonia is NH3. So likewise, when urea is broken down, it can be broken down into ammonia as well. And that's what's available to those microbes they use for microbial protein. So like I said, urea is not a protein source. It's a non-protein nitrogen source or NPN source, as it is commonly referred to as, and the rumen microbes are still able to use this urea when it's broken down into ammonia and they use this for microbial protein synthesis. So we can use urea as a substitute for a proportion of the dietary RDP in our feedlot rations. One thing that we have to also consider is that the rumen microbes account for a substantial amount of protein in the animal's system, or in their diet, I guess you could say, and they may pass 1.25 pounds to 3.5 pounds of microbes daily, it kind of depends on how much feed they're eating, what kind of diet they're on. And then rumen bacteria typically average 50% crude protein. So they are a substantial protein source for that animal. So there are some rules that you should follow when using urea. It's very important to make sure that you mix urea very thoroughly into your feed. That way you can avoid toxicity issues. Like I said, if you overfeed this, you can cause ammonia toxicity. So if there's excess ammonia, typically the animal is gonna, usually urea is excreted through the urine. One way you can help prevent toxicity is to increase your feeding frequency throughout the day. Some other rules, when you're formulating diets with urea you don't want to exceed a third of the dietary protein from urea. And then you also don't want to feed urea much greater than 1%, typically around 1% is good. Typically they say, don't go greater than at least 1.5%. One thing you start to notice is that once you get to some of those higher levels, you'll see a reduction in feed intake from cattle. So it's not maybe the best protein option for say young calves or smaller calves that you're trying to get up on feed, start to eat. So typically calves will need an adjustment period to the use of urea in your diet. So it's not necessarily the best thing for smaller calves. So let those calves get a little bigger, say probably over 500 pounds, before you start using too much urea. So also want to make sure, because urea doesn't provide any other nutrients besides nitrogen, it has no energy or anything like that, make sure that you're providing adequate phosphorus, sulfur, and other trace minerals just to make sure you're meeting all those bases. So next I'd like to go over a few diets where we substitute urea into the diet as a protein source relative to distillers grain being used as the protein source. So here I've used the the MSU Enterprise budget tool that can be found online. So I have a diet here consisting of corn, corn silage, urea, distiller's grain, and a supplement that carries the minerals and vitamins, and has, I think it's got like some soybean meal and corn as a carrier in it. So this spreadsheet has the opportunity for you to modify some of these prices. So in this example, we're gonna use some past prices from around the time of October of 2020. So you can see corn is a little cheaper back then, as well as distillers. So with the corn at 55% of our diet, corn silage at 25%, urea is not included in this diet at this point, when we have 10% distillers grain and a 10% supplement making up our diet. Our cost here, we can come down, well we can see what it costs on a per pound basis, but we can also come over here and simply look at the price per ton as well, say on as fed basis if you'd like, and these are some numbers just to keep in mind as we go through these slides just to see how much they're going to change. And then also on the right-hand side we have the energy value then the energy for maintenance, the energy for gain, and then we'll have our crude protein value as well. So you can see how much each of those feeds will contribute to that protein value. So here's a example. So like I said, the last one was past prices. Now we're moving to our current prices. Again, we don't have urea in the diet. So the diet's the same. The only thing we've changed now are our prices. So we've changed our price of corn, which is going to affect our price of corn silage, and also changed our, or updated our price to our distiller's grain. So one thing you're going to notice, let's go back a second. You can see this value here. Take a sec, take a second, take it in. Got 0.0875, or on a price per ton as fed basis, we're at $130. Current prices, we go to a 0.1196, or on a price per ton basis as fed $178. So big jump there just alone on prices. We didn't change our diet formulation whatsoever. Just price of feed changed. So our nutrient composition on the right's going to stay the same as well. So how can we, how, how does this look if we swap out urea, for example, for distillers grain? How is that going to affect our protein percentage, our energy value of our diet? What is it gonna look like for affecting the cost of our diet? So here's an example just to show you what a slight change would make in this diet. I'm not saying this diet's balanced whatsoever, but I just want to show you what it looks like when you start substituting urea into the diet. So let's just put urea in at 1% of the diet for our distillers grains, so our distillers grain's going to go down to 9% instead of 10%. So our cost, I think we around 0.11, was it nine, eight two. So our cost in this example went up a little bit. However, you can see over here, we took a slight drop in our energy value, but a huge increase in our crude protein, because urea supplies such a large amount of protein, or has a large crude protein value. So obviously we'd be able to modify this diet a little bit more because there's no reason that we need our finishing ration to have 16% crude protein. So we can go back and modify this further. So here's a diet, for example, that we took out distillers grain in this case. So no longer do, we no longer have distillers grain. We have 1% urea, but one thing that we're able to do, from 55% we're able to go up to 64. We're able to put the rest, or more corn or more energy in the supply energy for those microbes to continue to replicate and do microbial protein synthesis so that we're supplying more protein. And like I said, in the case of this example, you don't know it on the supplement, but there is some soybean meal in there. In an ideal situation we probably would replace that with distillers grain because distillers grain has more RUP, or rumen undegradable protein that we can supply to the small intestine. And it's a much cheaper protein source compared to soybean meal, but for simplicity sake, this is what we got. But you can see we were able to bring back down our price, able to bring down our protein value to a more manageable level as well. And because we're able to add in more corn, we're able to get our energy value back up to where we originally started as well. So like I said, I was able to do a lot of this here using the MSU Feedlot Enterprise budget tool. Our previous MSU Feedlot educational series session was on how to use the feedlot enterprise budget tool. So if you're looking to learn how to use this tool a little bit more or what it has to offer, please check out this website, play around with this file. If you have questions, please, don't hesitate to reach out, send me an email if you'd like. It's a great tool, especially when you're playing around with prices to see what fits in your operation. So next I'd like to talk about a little bit of the research regarding urea in corn silage based diets, because that's pretty much we're feeding here in the thumb are corn silage based diets. So here's some research that was done by Felix and others in 2014. They looked at different protein sources in growing diets for feeder calves. In this case, the protein source is being urea, distillers grain, or soybean meal. And you can see their relative contributions in the diets right here. So in the urea diet, they had a 1.4% urea. So a little bit higher than the 1% recommendation that I was kinda telling you earlier about. So that represents about 37% of the total crude protein in this diet. So a little higher than the third two. So maybe a little bit more urea in this diet than what we would consider more ideal. So these diets were compared at similar crude protein level. You can see they're just shy of 11%. And one thing that you'll notice, when you have urea in there, you have no other contributions from urea except nitrogen or protein. Whereas when you have distillers grain and soybean meal, they also provide energy as well. So these other two diets provided a little bit more energy to those animals. And then here with urea, because urea is all broken down into ammonia, all that it has a high RDP value or degradable intake protein value, so it also had the highest degradable intake protein value compared to the other two diets. So here's the performance data from this study. And some of the results that we saw were that urea resulted in a reduced average daily gain. So, right here, reduced average daily gain compared to our distillers grain and our soybean meal, also had a reduced dry matter intake, feed intake value compared to distillers grain and soybean meal diets. It also had a reduced gain to feed value. So these cattle weren't quite as efficient on this diet, but one thing was that they had a similar feed cost of gain as a soybean meal based diet. So right here, when we look at feed cost of gain, urea and soybean meal had a similar value, and that's because the soybean meal, at this time when the study was conducted, was a little bit more expensive. So feed cost of gain was similar between those two diets. However, distillers green in this case, or at the time the study was conducted, resulted in a cheaper or more desirable feed cost of gain in this situation. So they, in the same study, they conducted another experiment looking at what was the ideal crude protein percentage in these rations, trying to target 11%, 12%, and 13% in each of these rations. And urea was used as a protein source. Here you can see that they had one point, about 1.4%, 1.7%, and 2.1%. So this resulted in about 30% of the total crude protein, about 35% of the total crude protein, and then we're getting closer to 39% of the total crude protein. So we're starting to get on the upper end of providing all that protein through urea, or a large percent of that protein through urea. So starting to get to be a little too much probably at this point. So as we start adding more urea, we start seeing greater crude protein in each of these diets. And then here, we also, with less urea, we had a greater energy value because they're able to supply more ground corn, for example. So here's a table showing the performance results. And what they found was that by increasing their dietary urea, they decreased average daily gain and gain to feed or feed efficiency, and then it increased the feed cost of gain for those animals. So let's take a look here. So at the lower protein levels here, we saw that we had a greater average daily gain, also had a greater feed intake, and those animals were also more feed efficient compared to when we had greater crude protein percentage supplied by urea. And likewise, our feed cost of gain was also greater, more expensive, less desirable when we had a larger percentage of urea in the diet. So like I was saying before, as we start to get too much urea in there, we start to see some of those negative impacts. So here's another study looking at urea in corn silage diets from Oney and others in 2019. And they have, the treatments here are across the top, oops, sorry, across the top we have the RUP levels for each of these treatments. So the rumen undegradable protein or the protein that they're trying to supply to the small intestine, these diets were, like I said, largely corn silage based, 85% corn silage, and what they did is, going from left to right, they decrease the amount of RDP and increase the amount of RUP. So like I said RUP values that they're trying to supply across the top. So you can see, well, based on corn silage. So we have increasing RUP values going from left to right. So in this case, we're also increasing the amount of protein from left to right. Like I said, their goal was to try to increase the RUP using different protein sources in this experiment. So in this case, what they found was that they saw a linear increase in average daily gain. So as there were more RUP or rumen undegradable protein sources to the small intestine, they saw that they had greater average daily gain. The cattle performed more efficiently, or they had a greater gain to feed ratio, particularly in the beginning of the experiment when these cattle were first getting started or when they were younger from days one to 37. Overall from days one to 83, in this case, a similar pattern, starts to mellow out a little bit, but you still see that those cattle that were supplied with more, a better metabolizable protein balance. So you can see here MP balance is metabolizable protein balance. Animals that had a better metabolizable protein balance were performing better than the ones that did not have, sorry about that, have a balanced, balanced metabolize, didn't have metabolizable protein balanced in their diet. So some of the conclusions that we can take away from this is that we can investigate different management decisions such as buying cattle at particular different sizes, depending on how that works for our operation. Or we can try different feeds if our, if our operation allows or if our budget allows, if we're able to use those cheaper feeds, if that works in our operation. One important lesson learned here is that we need to plan ahead. And the enterprise budget is a great tool for that. We're able to change the prices in there and see if we're able to make money when prices are high or how much money will we make when prices are low. So we're able to plan ahead and make decisions if that, if that situation arises. Another thing that we discussed here is that urea can be used as a protein source in our rations. So in this case, we're able to substitute that from some of our more expensive protein sources and use a cheaper alternative in urea. And then based on the last experiment that I was showing you, it's important to balance our protein sources. We don't wanna supply all the protein through urea, as that can have some detrimental effects, or at least won't optimize our growth of our cattle or the performance of our cattle. So we still need to supply a complimentary protein source that can supply some rumen undegradable protein. And distillers grain makes, is a great option in that case. And it's, it's obviously cheaper than soybean meal. So having a little bit of distillers grain isn't terrible in your option, but we can reduce some of those costs by adding a little bit of urea in our diet as well. So like I said, protein sources should be balanced. And if we even want to get more complicated, balancing for amino acids is also important. Ultimately, if we're missing, the first rate limiting amino acid that we're not supplying is ultimately gonna prevent that animal from reaching its optimal potential. So with that I'd like to thank everyone who attended tonight's session, and I'd be open to answer any questions you may have at this time. My email is also available there. So if you don't want to ask your question now, or you have another question that pops into your head later, feel free to send me an email. Thank you. - Thanks Jerad. Kevin's asking what's the most desirable RDP to RUP ratio on the ration for different sizes of feeder cattle. Is there a chart or a conversion based on size for that idea? - That's a good question, Kevin. I was looking for something like that and I didn't necessarily find it. There may be something out there like that. I don't know what it is though. So if you happen to find it, let me know. - Are there other questions? You can type them into the chat or you can unmute and just know that this presentation is being recorded and will be posted on the MSU Extension beef team website, where you can view the archives of these. And I put that URL into the chat as well as the feedlot enterprise budget tool URL in the chat. Any other questions tonight? Any difference between DDG and wet DG? So dry and wet distillers grains, what are the differences? - Well, the largest difference is moisture percentage, and I did have it plotted in some of the price charts too, and just decided to remove it because honestly the biggest difference there is just moisture. So you have to consider freight costs if that's an option, if that could be an option for you, consider trucking all that water, does it make sense for you, so that's something that you'd have to pencil in. Otherwise, the nutrient composition, it has a lot of protein as well. Actually, now I can't remember off the top of my head if the RDP to RUP ratio has changed much. I don't think that they do. I think the composition is pretty much similar. The only thing that's different is moisture content of those feeds. - Yeah, so make sure you're balancing your price on a dry matter basis. - Say that again, Jeannine? - Make sure that you're looking at the prices on a dry matter basis, yeah, to compare. - [Jerad] Yeah. - Cause they may charge more, the dry, because they're drying it, you know, you may get it cheaper and it may make up for some of that freight cost. You have to really look at it on a dry matter basis, I would think. - [Jerad] I imagine each plant's a little different, just off general prices that I seen when I calculated it, it was basically the dry matter percentage of those feeds. That was the only difference. - Yeah, Kevin's also asking, is there a urea level below 1% that should be used regularly unless the partial budget says otherwise? - So like I said, you may not want to use this for smaller calves or calves that you're just trying to get up on feed, because it can have some negative effects as far as feed intake. And ultimately our goal with smaller calves or newly received calves is to get them consuming feed as quickly as possible. So there you may not use much urea, say, in a receiving diet, but as those cattle are starting to become a little bit larger, eat a little bit more, it makes sense that we'd start supplying some urea in the diet, just because it is, it's much cheaper than some of our other protein sources. I think when I figured it out, urea was seven times, seven times cheaper, I think, or for a percentage of crude protein compared to distillers grain. So it's just because it has such a large crude protein value. So, but again, like I said, we also have to consider that we don't want all of our protein supplied by just urea. That's all RDP. And then a lot of our corn sources, if you go back and look at that table, I had corn silage has a very high RDP value as well. So we need some kind of protein source that's going to supply the rumen undegradable protein, because that's going to supply a lot of those essential amino acids that the animal needs for optimum growth. We don't want to rate limit some of those amino acids. - Yeah, and Kevin also commented probably in that 600 to 1000 pound range. Dr. Dan Buskirk's on tonight, and he's commenting that what distillers grains tends to have a better feed efficiency compared to dried in finishing diets. It's not a huge effect, but it is significant. And he says that he's not aware of any difference regarding the protein utilization. Charlie's asking if corn is going to stay high, won't other prices go up? Is it bad to change the ration often when prices are changing, I think that's what he's asking. - You will see, like I said, corn will set the energy value for a lot of other feeds. So if, you could expect to see some other feeds increase in price as well. It's something that you kind of have to pay attention to. And when prices are high, like you said, it it may be beneficial to your operation to manipulate your diet a little bit, to make it more least cost for you so that you can optimize in that sense. So it doesn't hurt. - Anything on acclimation period of transitioning rations or anything you want to add there? - No, not particularly. It just, if you're going to use urea, those cattle will need time to become accustomed to it. That's for sure. You don't want to rush them. And like I said, make sure cattle are already eating well before that. And then if you are going to put in urea, make sure that you have a high enough energy value, because supplying that nitrogen for the microbes, they also need an sufficient amount of energy so that they can continue to break down feed and replicate and conduct microbial protein synthesis. So you need enough energy as well. So in the one example I had earlier today, as we took out distillers grain and we had the urea in the diet, we added more corn for energy value. - Are there any other questions tonight that we haven't answered or things you want to ask? I have put into the chat a Qualtrics survey link, and we would greatly appreciate your feedback. If you just take a minute as we end this webinar to click on that and answer a few questions, it only takes maybe a couple minutes, that helps capture some impact and also gives you the opportunity for comments and future programming ideas. Any other questions? - Great questions tonight, everyone. Keep 'em coming. - Nice job tonight, Jerad. - Thank you. - All right, I'm going to stop the recording.