March 18, 2025

Livestock, poultry and aquaculture in US consumed close to 300 million tonnes of feed in 2023. report found

A new report from the Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER) quantifies the amount of feed consumed by the United State's major livestock, poultry, and aquaculture species.

In 2023, US livestock, poultry, and farmed aquaculture consumed approximately 283.6 million tonnes of feed.

Excluding harvested forages and roughages, the study found that in 2023, beef cattle consumed the most feed at 76.7 million tonnes, followed by broilers at 61.5 million tonnes, hogs at 60.9 million tonnes, dairy cattle at 48.7 million tonnes, egg-laying hens at 17.7 million tonnes, turkeys at 10.9 million tonnes, horses at 5.3 million tonnes, sheep and goats at 1.2 million tonnes, and aquaculture at 615,800 tonnes.

The report primarily examined over 70 unique feed ingredients used among the studied species, finding that by weight, corn tops the list at 159.4 million tonnes, followed by soybean meal at 35.4 million tonnes, corn distillers' dried grains at 32.6 million tonnes, wheat middlings at 5.6 million tonnes, and canola meal at 5.2 million tonnes.

The report also found that 37% of total feed consumption (excluding harvested forages and roughages) came from "circular" ingredients, meaning co-products or byproducts from the human food industry or other industrial processes that might otherwise go to landfill. For hogs, 28% of feed consumption came from circular ingredients.

The total amount of feed fed to US hogs in 2023 equaled approximately 60.9 million tonnes. More than 77.8% of this amount came from corn-related ingredients. Other commodity groups include 10.8% of soy-related ingredients, 5.2% of processed plant co-products, 2.8% of small grains, and 1.8% of vitamins and minerals.

- IFEEDER