Coes & Distillers

摘要

If you're located in the "ethanol belt" co-products might be a good option for winter cow rations. With prices for feed, fuel and pasture driving up cow costs - and drought seemingly always just around the corner - ranchers are looking for ways to sharpen efficiency and reduce costs. For those lucky enough to operate in the shadow of an ethanol-production facility, the answer is often distillers grains (DCs). John Maddux, a cow-calf, yearling and cattle-feeding operator in Wauneta, NE, is well familiar with the use of DGs in his cattle-feeding and yearling enterprises, for which he contracts his supply from two plants within 35 miles of his operation. But he also uses the byproduct in limited winter situations when heavy snows occasionally bury theSandhills grass and crop residue his cows almost entirely subsist on from November through early April.