Guides
The feedstuffs market, explained
How the numbers on this site work: what DDGS is, how to compare feeds on cost per unit of protein and energy, the corn and soybean-meal benchmark, FOB plant versus delivered. Each guide is built on the same live data as the leaderboard, so the examples are real and current.
The feedstuffs menu
What is DDGS?
DDGS is distillers dried grains with solubles, the feedstuff left when an ethanol plant ferments the starch out of corn. It runs roughly 27 to 32 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis with energy close to corn, which is why beef feedlots and dairies feed the most of it.
The feedstuffs menu: gluten feed, gluten meal, hulls, cottonseed
The feedstuffs board is a menu of feeds that each fill one job in a ration, some protein, some energy, some fiber. Corn gluten feed and meal, the oilseed meals, the hulls and whole cottonseed each sit in their own spot, and the leaderboard sorts which is the cheap way to do a given job this week.
Wet vs dry distillers grains: when the wet discount pays
Wet distillers grains carry a real per-ton discount against DDGS, but it only pays off within a short haul of the plant, before freight erases it. This guide walks through when wet cake pencils out and when dry is the safer buy.
What is corn gluten feed?
Corn gluten feed is the fiber and steep liquor left when a wet mill separates the starch and gluten out of corn. It runs roughly 21 to 24 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis with energy near corn's on forage diets, and it is a different feed from the far-higher-protein corn gluten meal.
What are wheat middlings?
Wheat middlings, or midds, are the bran, shorts and germ left when wheat is milled into flour. They run about 18 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis with energy from fiber rather than starch, and they are high in phosphorus relative to calcium, which has to be balanced.
What is hominy feed?
Hominy feed is the bran, germ and residual starch left when corn is dry-milled for grits and corn meal. It is close to corn in energy with more protein and fat, running about 11 to 12 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis, and its fat means it does not store like corn.
Feather meal: price and protein limitations
Feather meal is a rendered protein made by cooking poultry feathers under pressure, and it carries very high crude protein, around 85 to 90 percent on a dry-matter basis. But its amino-acid balance is poor and its digestibility varies with processing, so crude protein alone overstates what it is worth in a ration.
What is blood meal?
Blood meal is dried, ground blood collected at packing plants, and it is one of the most protein-dense feedstuffs on the board at roughly 90 percent crude protein or more on a dry-matter basis. How it was dried decides how much of that protein an animal can actually use.
What is sunflower meal?
Sunflower meal is what is left after sunflower seed is crushed for oil: a mid-protein, high-fiber feed ingredient grown mostly in the Dakotas. How much hull was removed before crushing decides almost everything about how it feeds and what it is worth.
The substitution method
How to compare feed ingredients on protein and energy
To compare two feedstuffs, price the nutrient, not the ton. Convert each board price to a cost per pound of crude protein and per pound of energy on a dry-matter basis, then rank the result against corn for energy and soybean meal for protein.
The corn + soybean-meal benchmark
Corn and soybean meal are the two prices every other feedstuff is measured against, corn for energy and soybean meal for protein. A feedstuff that delivers a nutrient below the benchmark's cost per pound is worth pricing into the ration; above it, the plain commodity is the cheaper buy.
Reading a feedstuffs report
A USDA feedstuffs report is a weekly price sheet for the feeds that are not whole grains, published by the Agricultural Marketing Service. Four reports cover the ground, the processor feedstuffs, the mill feeds, the animal proteins and the grain co-products, and this site is built on all four.
Sunflower meal vs soybean meal
Sunflower meal is lower in protein and much higher in fiber than soybean meal, running about 28 to 34 percent crude protein against soybean meal's roughly 48 to 54 percent. That fiber lowers its energy and limits it in monogastric diets, but it works well as a rumen-degradable protein for cattle.
Buying and the market
FOB plant vs delivered: freight in feed buying
FOB plant is the price of a feedstuff at the mill or ethanol plant door, before any freight, and it is the number the board leads with. Add the haul and a delivered price can run well above it, which is why the cheapest board quote is not always the cheapest feed at the farm.
Why DDGS prices track ethanol
DDGS prices track ethanol because DDGS is a co-product of ethanol, made only when a plant runs corn. How much reaches the market is set by ethanol run rates, and the plant's margin on fuel and corn oil against corn is what decides how hard it runs.
What drives corn gluten meal prices?
Corn gluten meal price comes down to how hard corn wet mills are running, what soybean meal costs, and how badly poultry formulators want the pigment it carries. Corn's own price is an input underneath all of that rather than the driver most people expect it to be.
What drives alfalfa pellet prices?
Alfalfa pellet prices ride on the alfalfa hay market first, then on the water and the natural gas it takes to grow, dry and pellet the crop. Grade matters too, since USDA quotes sun-cured and dehydrated pellets as separate products at separate protein specs.