USDA Long-Term Projections: Distillers Grains
The growth of ethanol production and increased supply of distillers grains is resulting in different adjustments across U.S. livestock industries.
Higher prices will lower direct corn feed use, but distillers grains - a dry mill ethanol production co-product - can be used in livestock rations, particularly in diets of ruminants (distillers grains are less suitable in rations for monogastric animals). For each 56 lb. bushel of corn used for ethanol production, about 17.5 lbs of dried distillers grains are produced.
Distillers grains are used in livestock feed in a wet form or dried and used with lower moisture content. Wet distillers grains avoids costs of drying the product but involves increased per-unit handling costs. Wet distillers grains also must be used relatively quickly, thus limiting how far they can be transported.
Dried distillers grains incur costs of drying but facilitate the shipment of this coproduct over greater distances, including for exports. Whether used wet or dried, distillers grains used in livestock feed replace some direct corn use, as well as soybean meal in some animal rations. Based on assumptions regarding the use of distillers grains in the livestock sector, each bushel of corn used to produce ethanol results in a reduction of about a fifth of a bushel of corn feed use.