An Alberta based feed research scientist is advising pork producers to ship market hogs fed diets containing high inclusions of wheat dried distillers grains with solubles at slightly higher weights.
A dramatic increase in the use of wheat for industrial purposes, primarily ethanol production, has increased the availability and lowered the cost of wheat DDGS for use in livestock rations.
Dr. Eduardo Beltranena, a feed research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, reports scientists compared the performance of grow finish pigs fed diets ranging from zero to 30 percent inclusion of wheat DDGS.
We basically saw a little bit of an effect on reduced carcass weight and obviously reduced dressing percentage because of the higher fibre content.
You will find the same when you have a barley and a wheat diet.
The barley diet will give you a lower dressing percentage because the hind gut tends to thicken and when you remove it at evisceration then the carcass weighs a little lower so hog farmers need to market their hogs a little heavier, by two to three kilos, but that also means two to three days more in the barn.
Some of the other things we saw with wheat DDGS was basically no effect on the yield of primal cuts.
That’s the picnic, the butt, the ham and the loin but we saw a little bit of a decrease on the weight of the belly.
I think part of that was we didn’t have the proper energy value for the wheat so at the higher levels, 22 and a half and 30 percent, we saw a small reduction in the weight of the belly.
Dr. Beltranena notes while the processing plants have been very focused on ethanol production they are getting the message that in order to effectively market these co-products they do have to do some quality control and ensure quality is consistent.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
