Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1511

Research conducted near Saskatoon shows cereal by-products from ethanol production hold great promise as feed ingredients in swine diets.

A 20 fold increase in North American ethanol production over the past 20 years has made available more cereal by-products, namely dried distillers grain plus solubles abbreviated as DDGS.

Scientists at the Prairie Swine Centre examining the potential of these by-products in swine rations looked at corn DDGS, wheat DDGS and wheat and corn DDGS.

Swine Nutritionist Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra says dried distillers grains have generally higher concentrations of fibre, crude protein, fat, vitamins and minerals than their parent grains.

"We know simply by some chemical characteristics that wheat DDGS compared to corn DDGS has more fibre and less fat and that was reflected in a lower digestible energy content of wheat DDGS verses corn DDGS.

That would mean that wheat DDGS is a valuable feed ingredient for pigs but it's not as valuable as corn DDGS. Another nutrient of importance is phosphorus.

Nutritionally it's a required nutrient for pigs but also excreted phosphorus, we would like to reduce the environmental impact of the swine industry.

What we found in this study is that wheat DDGS, similar to corn DDGS, the phosphorus in these ingredients is very highly digestible with a much higher digestibility of this phosphorus in the by-product as compared to the original feedstock for ethanol production".

Dr. Zijlstra says over the next two years scientists plan to examine what can be done to improve the feed quality of dried distillers grains, identify maximum inclusion rates in rations and evaluate the effects of these ingredients on carcass quality.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.