UI Animal Scientists Look For By-Product Feed

URBANA – Ethanol is the star on the agriculture stage now, but behind the scenes, University of Illinois animal scientists are casting the spotlight on its not-so-sexy byproduct.

Distillers dried grains – or DDGs – are what's left over after distillers turn ground corn into alcohol, the hulls and other solids usually fed to livestock, especially ruminants like cattle and sheep that can digest the high fibrous feed.

UI animal scientists Larry Berger and Carl Parsons, a poultry specialist, are working on ways to make the feed more efficient and cost-effective because they say if ethanol production increases as forecast, there are going to be a lot more DDGs around

Berger said that fact is focusing industry interest on their work.

"Forecasts say in the next couple of years, we could be fermenting up to 40 percent of the corn crop," he said. "For every bushel of corn, you get 17 pounds of DDGs. With the plants under construction in the next year or two, we could be producing 30 million tons of DDGs a year. Production's in the 10 to 12 million range now."

Berger has developed a pelletized feed for ruminants made of cornstalks treated so they're more digestible and mixed with DDGs, a study he and his students completed with major support from Decatur ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland.

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