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 use real USDA prices.
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 in a given week.
WDGS vs DDGS: wet vs dry distillers grains
Wet distillers grains (WDGS) and DDGS are the same ethanol co-product at different moisture. On the USDA board wet has sold at about a third of the DDGS price per ton since 2022, close to the dry matter it carries, so the wet discount is mostly the freight on its water. In 2026 the gap per ton of dry matter widened.
What is corn gluten feed?
Corn gluten feed is the bran and steep liquor left when a wet mill pulls the starch, gluten and germ out of corn. It runs about 22 to 24 percent crude protein with energy from fiber, sells wet near the mill or dried and pelleted, and is a different feed from the 60 percent protein corn gluten meal.
What are wheat middlings?
Wheat middlings, or midds, are the fine bran, shorts, germ and flour particles a flour mill sells for feed. They run about 18 percent crude protein with energy from fiber rather than starch, and their price runs on a seasonal cycle: on the USDA board, midds averaged more each winter than the summer before, every year from 2022 to 2025.
What is hominy feed?
Hominy feed is the corn bran, germ and part of the starch a dry mill sells for feed after making grits, corn meal and flour. It runs close to corn in energy with more fat and protein, and on the USDA board it cost less than corn per pound of energy in 202 of 206 weekly reports from July 2022 to September 2026.
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.
What is a feedstuff?
A feedstuff is any ingredient fed to animals for the nutrients it supplies, from hay and grain to protein meals, minerals and vitamins. In the feed trade it usually means the processed protein and energy ingredients, such as DDGS, gluten feed, oilseed meals, hulls and mill feeds, that buyers price against corn and soybean meal.
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 and soybean meal ration benchmark
Corn prices a pound of energy and soybean meal a pound of protein, and every other feed is worth what the corn and soybean meal it replaces would cost. On the Sep 28, 2026 USDA board no feed beat corn on energy and four beat soybean meal on protein, but ten cost less than the corn and soybean meal they replace.
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.
How to convert feed prices per ton to per kg, per hundredweight and per unit of protein
Divide a USDA feed price per ton by 907.18 to get the price per kilogram, because USDA quotes feed per short ton of 2,000 pounds. Divide by 20 for per hundredweight, and put the price on a dry-matter basis before comparing feeds on protein or energy.
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.
DDGS market: why distillers grains prices track ethanol
The US DDGS market tracks ethanol because DDGS is a co-product of ethanol, made only when a plant runs corn. Ethanol run rates set the supply, corn sets its value in the ration, and exports take about a third of what US plants make.
Corn gluten meal market: what drives prices
The US corn gluten meal market 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, not the driver most people expect.
Alfalfa pellets market: what drives pellet prices
The US alfalfa pellets market rides on the alfalfa hay market first, then on the water and natural gas it takes to grow, dry and pellet the crop. USDA quotes sun-cured and dehydrated pellets as separate grades at separate protein specs, so check which one a price is.
Blood meal market: what drives prices
Blood meal prices are set by slaughter on the supply side and by a short list of buyers who pay for its protein on their own terms, not by the soybean meal market. On USDA's board ruminant blood meal averaged between $1,036 and $1,096 a ton in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025 while soybean meal fell by more than a third.