November 24, 2008
Texas meeting on feeding cattle distiller's grains
Nutritionists and producers alike will meet for a distiller's grain feeding update on December 9 at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 6500 W. Amarillo Blvd. in Amarillo, US.
The programme will provide up-to-date results of research conducted by university and federal scientists related to the feeding of distiller's grains to beef cattle in the Southern Plains, said Dr. Jim MacDonald, Texas AgriLife Research beef nutritionist.
Nutritionists and producers alike will meet for a distiller's grain feeding update on Dec. 9 at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 6500 W. Amarillo Blvd. in Amarillo.
The programme will provide up-to-date results of research conducted by university and federal scientists related to the feeding of distiller's grains to beef cattle in the Southern Plains, said Dr. Jim MacDonald, Texas AgriLife Research beef nutritionist.
There is a growing supply of wet and dry distiller's grains available for feeding to beef cattle in the Southern Great Plains, MacDonald said. However, to date, most of the distiller's grain feeding research has been conducted with typical Northern Plains diets based on dry-rolled or high-moisture corn.
Until recently, there has been little research conducted with steam-flaked corn-based diets typical of the Southern Great Plains, said Dr. Andy Cole, research animal scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service laboratory at Bushland.
Results of animal performance, carcass characteristics, beef-eating quality, digestion and metabolism, environmental quality, sulfur metabolism and intestinal microbial changes also will be presented, he said. In addition, the results of research looking at the effects on performance of stocker calves and beef cows will be presented.
The programme is sponsored by the National Sorghum Producers, Texas Corn Producers, Levelland/Hockley County Ethanol LLC, Quality Distillers Grains, Panda Energy and the Consortium for Cattle Feeding and Environmental Sciences.
