Candy, cereal, cookies: Farmers keep cows going on creative feed alternatives

With the worst drought in recent memory driving corn prices up, farmers have been forced to buy what they can to feed their cows cheaply. Alternatives could be anything from orange peels to marshmallows. 

|
Jeremy Hogan/AP
A cow and its calf are herded into the auction arena at the Springville Feeder Auction Association Aug. in Springville, Ind. Indiana's worst drought in decades is forcing some cattle farmers to sell off cows they can no longer afford to feed as pastures dry up and feed prices soar. Other farmers have found unusual cheap feed alternatives.

Mike Yoder's herd of dairy cattle are living the sweet life. With corn feed scarcer and costlier than ever, Yoder increasingly is looking for cheaper alternatives -- and this summer he found a good deal on ice cream sprinkles.

"It's a pretty colorful load," said Yoder, who operates about 450 dairy cows on his farm in northern Indiana. "Anything that keeps the feed costs down."

As the worst drought in half a century has ravaged this year's US corn crop and driven corn prices sky high, the market for alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cows has also skyrocketed. Brokers are gathering up discarded food products and putting them out for the highest bid to feed lot operators and dairy producers, who are scrambling to keep their animals fed.

In the mix are cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, even dried cranberries. Cattlemen are feeding virtually anything they can get their hands on that will replace the starchy sugar content traditionally delivered to the animals through corn.

"Everybody is looking for alternatives," said Ki Fanning, a nutritionist with Great Plains Livestock Consulting in Eagle, Nebraska. "It's kind of funny the first time you see it but it works well. The big advantage to that is you can turn something you normally throw away into something that can be consumed. The amazing thing about a ruminant, a cow, you can take those type of ingredients and turn them into food."

PRICING VARIES

Feed is generally the largest single production expense for cattle operators. Whatever is fed needs to supply energy and protein levels that meet the animals' nutritional needs. High prices for soy has operators seeking alternatives for both corn and soy.

Corn alternatives are in particular demand as supplies are so tight that in some areas of the country, feed corn is not available at any price.

Pricing and availability of the many different "co-products" as they are called, varies from place to place, but buyers report savings of 10 percent to 50 percent.

The savings for operators are shrinking, however, as savvy resellers tie pricing for their alternative offerings to the price of corn, which surged to record highs this summer due to drought damage.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said last month the harvest now underway will yield the smallest corn crop in six years due to the drought that is still gripping more than half of the nation.

"They are using less corn in a number of these rations, but as corn prices go up, prices for really every other co-product go up too," said Greg Lardy, head of the animal sciences department at North Dakota State University.

Operators must be careful to follow detailed nutritional analyses for their animals to make sure they are getting a healthy mix of nutrients, animal nutritionists caution. But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't.

The candy and cookies are only a small part of a broad mix of alternative feed offerings for cattle. Many operators use distillers grains, a byproduct that comes from the manufacture of ethanol. Other common non-corn alternatives include cottonseed hulls, rice products, potato products, peanut pellet.

Wheat "middlings," a byproduct of milling wheat for flour that contain particles of flour, bran, and wheat germ, also are fed.

And every now and then, there is a little chocolate for the hungry cows.

Hansen Mueller Grain out of Omaha, Nebraska, who markets chocolate bars alongside oats and peanut pellets, said it all comes down to fat, sugar and energy.

"That's all it is," said Bran Dill, a spokesman at Hansen Mueller. Demand is high, he said.

But he also said increasing prices are making alternatives less attractive.

"The price of this stuff has gone up so much it's gotten ridiculous," he said.

Additional reporting by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Candy, cereal, cookies: Farmers keep cows going on creative feed alternatives
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0923/Candy-cereal-cookies-Farmers-keep-cows-going-on-creative-feed-alternatives
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe