What is DDGS?

DDGS is distillers dried grains with solubles, the feedstuff left when an ethanol plant ferments the starch out of corn. Yeast turns the corn's starch into ethanol and carbon dioxide, which leaves the protein, fat and fiber behind. That residue is dried and the concentrated liquid, the solubles, is stirred back in, which is where the name comes from. One feedstuff, made in volume wherever corn goes to fuel ethanol.

What is left after the starch

Start with a bushel of corn. Roughly two-thirds of its weight is starch, and starch is the part the ethanol plant wants. Ferment it off and everything else concentrates by about three times: the protein, the corn oil that remains, the fiber and the minerals. A dry-mill plant dries that stream into DDGS. Because the starch is gone and the rest is concentrated, DDGS is a middle feed, higher in protein than corn and higher in energy than most protein meals.

Protein and energy, on a dry-matter basis

On a dry-matter basis DDGS runs roughly 27 to 32 percent crude protein, with university extension and NRC feed tables commonly landing near 29 to 30 percent. Its energy sits close to corn, because the corn oil and the digestible fiber carry the energy the starch used to. That pairing, protein and energy in one feed near 90 percent dry matter, is why it competes for a spot in so many rations. The exact numbers move plant to plant with how much oil was pulled, so a book value is a starting point, not a spec sheet.

Who feeds it

Cattle feed the most of it. Beef feedlots and dairies handle the fiber and the fat well and take the largest share. Extension sources put typical dairy inclusion in the neighborhood of 20 percent of ration dry matter and feedlot rations higher, while hog and poultry diets use it in smaller amounts, often around 10 to 20 percent, held back by the fiber and the oil. Those are magnitudes from the research, not a recommendation. What to feed, and at what rate, is the nutritionist's call, and this site does not make it.

Worked example: reading the board

The chart above is the live DDGS board price in dollars per ton. Read the latest point as this week's national price, then read it against corn and soybean meal rather than on its own. DDGS earns its place in a ration when it delivers protein and energy cheaper than buying them separately from those two, and the compare-feeds guide walks that math. The price is the input; the value is what it buys.

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