Cottonseed hulls price

Cottonseed hulls are a fiber source, fed for effective fiber and gut fill more than for nutrients. On a dry-matter basis they run about 6.7% crude protein and 42% TDN, roughly 0.31 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 91% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from Virginia Cooperative Extension, Agronomy Handbook Part XIV, from NASEM Beef Cattle 2016. High-fiber roughage; very low protein and energy: a filler, not a nutrient buy. The leaderboard uses them to convert each USDA report week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Cottonseed hulls are the fibrous shell removed from cottonseed before the seed is crushed for oil and meal, so supply follows cotton acreage and ginning volume, not any decision to grow for feed. Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and the California cotton belt are the main sources. Dairies buy hulls mainly for effective fiber, the coarse, low-density roughage that keeps rumen function normal, and demand rises whenever drought pushes hay prices up. Nutritionally they carry almost no protein or energy: buyers are paying for scratch factor, not nutrients. Being so bulky for their weight, freight is a bigger share of delivered cost here than for almost any other feedstuff.

A scratch-factor feed, not a nutrient buy. Cottonseed hulls carry almost no protein or energy; buyers are paying for coarse, low-density fiber that keeps rumen function normal in a high-concentrate ration, the same scratch-factor role hay itself plays in smaller volume. Dairies lean on hulls hardest when hay is tight or expensive, since a truckload of hulls can stand in for effective fiber at a lower cost per ton, even though it does nothing for the ration's protein or energy.

Not a substitute for soybean hulls. The two are easy to confuse because both are called "hulls" and both come off a crop grown for its seed's oil, but they are not interchangeable. Soybean hulls digest almost like a grain and carry real energy value, popular as a hay extender precisely because they deliver nutrients as well as fiber. Cottonseed hulls are close to pure roughage: bulk without much nutrition. Compare them on dry matter and cost per pound of energy, as the table on this page does, rather than on the raw price per ton, since a price gap alone says nothing about the very different jobs each fiber source does in a ration.

A single-origin quote. USDA's feedstuffs report prices cottonseed hulls FOB the plant out of California's San Joaquin Valley, the one region this site's series tracks; Texas, Georgia and Mississippi gins also produce hulls but do not carry a standing USDA quote here. Because hulls are so bulky for their weight, freight is a bigger share of delivered cost than for almost any other feedstuff on this board, so a distant buyer should expect the truck to matter more than the board price.

Cottonseed hulls vs soybean hulls. Cottonseed hulls are almost pure fiber, providing scratch factor rather than nutrients, while soybean hulls digest close to a grain and carry real energy value; substituting one for the other on a $/ton basis alone misleads because their fiber's fermentability is nothing alike. Mississippi State University Extension covers roughage and mill byproduct fiber sources for cattle.