What is DDGS? All about this high-quality cattle feed ingredient

On farms like mine, livestock are often fed nutritious byproducts from other industries. One of the most common is Dried Distillers Grain with Solubles (DDGS). DDGS are a byproduct of the ethanol production process and provide farmers with a high-quality feed ingredient.

How DDGS is made

DDGS is a valuable byproduct of the biofuel industry. Here’s how it’s made:

Ethanol is made by grinding whole corn kernels into a meal and adding water to create a mash.
Enzymes are added to the mash to convert the starch into simple sugars (dextrose).
This mash is cooked, cooled, and put into fermenters with yeast.
This yeast “eats” the sugars and creates ethanol and carbon dioxide (CO2).
The ethanol from this process is separated from the rest of the now-called “stillage.”
The stillage is sent through a centrifuge to separate the grain from the solubles.
The solubles are then concentrated through evaporation to create a “syrup,” followed by a drying process with the leftover grain.

The result? DDGS, a high-quality feedstuff (feed ingredient) ready for Illinois farmers like me to feed their cattle and other livestock.

For every 56-pound bushel of corn that we make into ethanol, we get 17-18 pounds of DDGS. It’s about a one-third return: 56 pounds of corn equals almost 3 gallons of ethanol and almost 20 pounds of DDGS.

This process is like cooking a turkey at Thanksgiving and using the drippings to make gravy. It’s an additional benefit we can use after making something else.

Why feed DDGS?

DDGS is a cost-effective feedstuff alternative to soybean and corn meal. For farmers, it’s like looking through grocery store ads to find quality ingredients at the best prices and planning family meals based on weekly sales.

DDGS is also high in protein and energy because the milling process concentrates the nutrients remaining in the grain after starch is removed.  On my farm, we feed DDGS to our beef cattle, and because of its high nutritional value, DDGS is also a common feedstuff dairy cattle diets.

Value-added way of thinking

Just like you, farmers look for different ways to add value to practices they’re already doing and products they already have to be as efficient as possible without sacrificing quality. DDGS is a great example of this way of thinking.

Not only is corn used to create ethanol and DDGS, but since DDGS is shelf-stable, it is easy to store and ship. This gives the U.S. another opportunity to sell products to other countries. The U.S. exports almost 12 million metric tons of DDGS annually. This ethanol byproduct adds value to local farms and the U.S. economy.

Farmers like me rely on both the corn demand from making ethanol and from the valuable livestock feed the ethanol process provides.

Explore more ways farmers use corn in cattle diets.