What is corn gluten feed?

Corn gluten feed is the bran and concentrated steep liquor left when a wet corn mill pulls the starch, gluten and germ out of corn. It runs about 22 to 24 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis with its energy in digestible fiber, and it is a different feed from corn gluten meal, the 60 percent protein fraction of the same mill.

It comes from wet milling, the industry that makes cornstarch and corn sweeteners, not from the dry-grind ethanol plants that make DDGS. K-State Research and Extension puts the yield at about 6 pounds of gluten feed from a 56-pound bushel of corn, roughly 11 percent of the corn's weight.

How it is made, wet and dry

A wet mill steeps corn in water and sulfur dioxide, then separates the germ for oil, the starch for starch and sweeteners, and the gluten for gluten meal. What is left is the bran, which the mill blends with the concentrated steep liquor. Sold that way it is wet corn gluten feed: K-State, citing the Corn Refiners Association, puts it at about 40 percent dry matter, and Feedipedia gives a range of 40 to 60 percent. Dried and pelleted, it ships at about 90 percent dry matter.

The two forms are not the same feed. K-State calls wet gluten feed nutritionally superior to dry, and Feedipedia reports that drying lowers its energy. Wet feed spoils quickly, though: Feedipedia cites a feeding window of 6 to 10 days unless it is sealed from air, and summer heat cuts that to three or four days. Mississippi State University Extension calls the wet form practical only close to the mill.

Protein, energy and the limits

Mississippi State lists corn gluten feed at 90 percent dry matter, 80 percent TDN and 22 percent crude protein; UF/IFAS Extension lists 22 percent protein and 83 percent TDN. The Ration's cost board uses 23.8 percent protein and 78 percent TDN at 90 percent dry matter.

Mississippi State spells out how it feeds. Its protein is highly digestible and breaks down fast in the rumen, so a ration built mostly on it can run short of bypass protein. On high-forage diets, at 0.5 percent of body weight or less, its TDN value is about equal to corn's. It works as both a protein and an energy supplement for beef cattle, and Mississippi State's guideline is no more than 50 percent of daily dry matter intake. It is low in calcium and can carry enough sulfur that it has to be diluted with other feeds to avoid polioencephalomalacia, particularly in growing calves. University of Minnesota Extension lists wet corn gluten feed at 0.47 percent sulfur on a dry-matter basis, with a practical range of 0.40 to 0.90, against a ceiling of 0.30 percent of diet dry matter for feedlot cattle.

Corn gluten feed vs corn and soybean meal on the board

The chart is USDA's dry corn gluten feed price, the national median of its FOB plant quotes. Priced on one nutrient at a time, it rarely looks cheap. In the 209 weekly reports from Jul 25, 2022 through Sep 28, 2026, it never cost less per pound of TDN than corn (median 132 percent of corn's cost), and it cost less per pound of protein than soybean meal in only 12, all between Apr 29 and Jul 29, 2024 (median 134 percent).

That is the wrong test for a feed that brings both. Mississippi State values feeds like this by what corn and soybean meal would cost to supply the same energy and protein together, and on that test corn gluten feed cost less than its corn and soybean meal equivalent in 145 of those 209 reports, at a median 94 percent of it. The edge has narrowed: it was cheaper in every report in 2022 and 2023, in 32 of 50 in 2024, 24 of 48 in 2025 and 17 of 39 in 2026 through September.

Worked example: the Sep 28, 2026 board

Corn gluten feed was $203 a ton, corn $174 and soybean meal $364. A ton of gluten feed at 90 percent dry matter holds 1,800 pounds of dry matter carrying about 428 pounds of crude protein and 1,404 pounds of TDN on the board's book values.

1. Find the corn and soybean meal that carry the same protein and energy. On a dry-matter basis that takes about 1,018 pounds of corn and 620 pounds of soybean meal, which is about 1,158 pounds of corn and 697 pounds of soybean meal as fed.
2. Price them. 1,158 pounds of corn at $174 a ton is $101; 697 pounds of soybean meal at $364 is $127. Together they cost about $228.
3. Compare. Corn gluten feed at $203 cost about 89 percent of the corn and soybean meal it would replace, even though on energy alone it cost more than corn and on protein alone more than soybean meal.

Wet against dry is a dry-matter question. On the same Sep 28 board, USDA's Central US quotes, both FOB plant, were $44 a ton for wet corn gluten feed and $146 for dry. At 40 percent dry matter the wet feed is $44 ÷ 0.40 = $110 per ton of dry matter; at 90 percent the dry is $146 ÷ 0.90 = $162. But every ton of dry matter bought wet means hauling 2.5 tons, against 1.11 tons dry. The $52 gap covers that extra 1.39 tons of water up to a freight cost of about $38 per ton hauled, which is K-State's point: the farther the buyer from the mill, the better the dry form pencils. The delivered feed-cost calculator runs freight on your own numbers, and the wet vs dry distillers grains guide works the same trade for the ethanol co-product.

The corn and soybean meal benchmark guide explains why those two are the yardstick, and the corn gluten meal market guide covers the mill's high-protein product.

The Ration reports the USDA corn gluten feed price as published and does the cost-per-nutrient arithmetic on it. It does not tell a reader what to feed or at what rate.