Feed ingredients and nutritive value

Blackwater boy

Moderator
Following on from @ithastopay suggestion I will get the ball rolling and make a few points as to ingredients and their feed values.
All feeds can be rated on either a UFL which is the feed value used for milk or UFV which is the feed value used for beef production. Most guys use the UFL value for both which is fine as they tell a similar story. I'll just name a few values on an as fed basis to give you the general gist.
Barley at 14% moisture has a ULF of 1
Wheat UFL of 1
Oats UFL of .9
Soya hulls UFL of .89
Citrus pulp UFL of 1
Beet pulp UFL of 1
Soyabean UFL of 1
Distillers UFL of 1
Maize UFL of 1
Rapeseed UFL of .94
Gluten UFL of .93
Beans UFL of 1
All the above are what I call class A ingredients and have no problem with them in feeds. What I have a major problem is with the following which appear a lot in feeds from certain mills.
Sunflower UFL of .67
Palm kernel UFL of .8
Pollard (wheat feed) .75
Cottonseed UFL of .74
Malt culms UFL of .66
The above are the energy values only but the protein and the quality of that protein is also important but I won't go into it but soya, distillers, rapeseed and beans are all high energy and high quality protein.
Sunflower, cottonseed, pollard and palm kernel can be used as protein sources also bit are both very poor in energy and poor quality protein.
The high energy and high quality protein feeds are expensive and the low energy low quality proteins are cheap. It's easy to make cheap feed using the cheap ingredients but the quality of it and the impact it can have on either milk or meat Production far outweighs the cost saved.
Minerals and cal mag have to go into most feeds and these have zero UFL value so they can drag down the overall UFL of the feed. In general finishing feeds should be .95-.97 UFL and dairy feeds .93-.95.
 
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@Blackwater boy
What about Mollasses? It weighs heavy enough. I bought some of the more expensive weanling crunches from a couple of different co-ops during the summer just to get the calves going on it. Some of the most expensive ones have visibly a lot of mollasses in them and cattle go mad for them. But are they just what I'm using them for, teasers to get calves into the habit of eating ration or is there a lot of feeding in molasses?
 
@Blackwater boy
What about Mollasses? It weighs heavy enough. I bought some of the more expensive weanling crunches from a couple of different co-ops during the summer just to get the calves going on it. Some of the most expensive ones have visibly a lot of mollasses in them and cattle go mad for them. But are they just what I'm using them for, teasers to get calves into the habit of eating ration or is there a lot of feeding in molasses?

Molasses is good feeding, we use it for both store and finishing diet. It's not cheap, we like it and cattle like it, a big feeder tells me they have less stomach problems when cattle are on molasses, he too says it's expensive compared to other products, but continues to use it.
Its not being added as a filler, though it may help make a shite diet more palatable, both for man and beast.
This is an education for me, the prices for some of the rations is shocking and quality is questionable.
 
@Blackwater boy
What about Mollasses? It weighs heavy enough. I bought some of the more expensive weanling crunches from a couple of different co-ops during the summer just to get the calves going on it. Some of the most expensive ones have visibly a lot of mollasses in them and cattle go mad for them. But are they just what I'm using them for, teasers to get calves into the habit of eating ration or is there a lot of feeding in molasses?
Molasses has a UFL of .85 but it is needed to either make feed into a nut or keep the dust down and make the feed bind a bit and palatability in rations. Some mills use a product called whey permeate instead of molasses, I'm not really sure what this is but I think it is a by product of milk processing and cheese but I don't know what feed value it has, it's probably good as they used feed whey to pigs.
 
This is an education for me, the prices for some of the rations is shocking and quality is questionable.

I think very few look at the ingredients on the docket. At home we buy a 16% nut from Pattons and have it blown into the meal loft. It costs north of €300/ton. We have tried a cheaper nut, but the difference in performance on the more expensive not is very noticeable. But rep tells us the vast majority of lads in our area that buy off Pattons just ring up the rep and ask what price are nuts. He has a cheaper nut at €240. He gives the 2 prices. 80% buy the cheaper nut. Very few do the sums to calculate that the more expensive nut is far better value.
 
Molasses is good feeding, we use it for both store and finishing diet. It's not cheap, we like it and cattle like it, a big feeder tells me they have less stomach problems when cattle are on molasses, he too says it's expensive compared to other products, but continues to use it.
Its not being added as a filler, though it may help make a shite diet more palatable, both for man and beast.
This is an education for me, the prices for some of the rations is shocking and quality is questionable.
Agree with this too ..also hauliers love lots of molasses in rations as it weighs like lead
 
I think very few look at the ingredients on the docket. At home we buy a 16% nut from Pattons and have it blown into the meal loft. It costs north of €300/ton. We have tried a cheaper nut, but the difference in performance on the more expensive not is very noticeable. But rep tells us the vast majority of lads in our area that buy off Pattons just ring up the rep and ask what price are nuts. He has a cheaper nut at €240. He gives the 2 prices. 80% buy the cheaper nut. Very few do the sums to calculate that the more expensive nut is far better value.
What are the ingredients in descending order of that 16% nut. You don't have to know nor are mills legally obliged to tell you the exact % of each but by looking at he label and knowing that X is a good ingredient and Y is pure muck then a person should be able to figure out what is a good feed and what is bad.
There is a very good reason the pig and poultry lads only use a small few top of the range ingredients as if a poorer quality ingredient was used they would see it immediately in performance.
there are thousands and thousands of tonnes of very poor quality ingredients imported into ireland from God knows where in the world and used in animal feeds.
 
Agree with this too ..also hauliers love lots of molasses in rations as it weighs like lead
That's the point I was making on the weanling ration too. Hypothetically, if I'm buying a ton of barley which has a UFL of 1 for 200/ton and then (hypothetically) buy a ton of ration or nuts for €240/ton which has 30% barley, 30% Maze (UFL of 1), 10% ash (UFL 0), 10% Soya Hulls (UFL .89) and 10% Mollasses (UFL ( .85) then I see straight barley as a better investment for putting weight on store cattle, even if I have to mix in my own soya and minerals which with the set up and small scale that I have is very easy for me to mix and it's convenient. The lower UFL of ask and mollasses is only replacing a produce of higher UFL, and some of the products (like mollasses) weigh much heavier than barley.

And I know that there is a lot of variable in all of this but for the likes of me feeding 2 to 3 kg per head per day, I can't see beyond rolled barley for feed value. I realise that if you were getting into bigger amounts digestability would be better with a more mixed feed.
 
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What are the ingredients in descending order of that 16% nut. You don't have to know nor are mills legally obliged to tell you the exact % of each but by looking at he label and knowing that X is a good ingredient and Y is pure muck then a person should be able to figure out what is a good feed and what is bad.
There is a very good reason the pig and poultry lads only use a small few top of the range ingredients as if a poorer quality ingredient was used they would see it immediately in performance.
there are thousands and thousands of tonnes of very poor quality ingredients imported into ireland from God knows where in the world and used in animal feeds.

I'll get a pic of the most recent delivery docket.
 
That's the point I was making on the weanling ration too. Hypothetically, if I'm buying a ton of barley which has a UFL of 1 for 200/ton and then (hypothetically) buy a ton of ration or nuts for €240/ton which has 30% barley, 30% Maze (UFL of 1), 10% ash (UFL 0), 10% Soya Hulls (UFL .89) and 10% Mollasses (UFL ( .85) then I see straight barley as a better investment for putting weight on store cattle, even if I have to mix in my own soya and minerals which with the set up and small scale that I have is very easy for me to mix and it's convenient. The lower UFL of ask and mollasses is only replacing a produce of higher UFL, and some of the products (like mollasses) weigh much heavier than barley.

And I know that there is a lot of variable in all of this but for the likes of me feeding 2 to 3 kg per head per day, I can't see beyond rolled barley for feed value. I realise that if you were getting into bigger amounts digestability would be better with a more mixed feed.
The only thing you lack is protein there. I don't think anyone uses 10% molasses, 5% would be in a nut and 3% maybe 4% in a ration. You couldn't physically blow a ration with 10% molasses in it nor would it come out of a bin. Ash is not necessarily a sign of Shite, it's what is left if you incinerated it. Barley has an ash value of 2.3%, soya 6.9% and sunflower 7% so a high as value does not always mean poor stuff.
 
We had a call today from the Glanbia man trying to get us to buy aswell as we don't buy feed from them, same nut as you were offered but we passed on it. Might re-look into getting a quote for our own mix next month.
here,s the list of ingredients in glanbias prime graze nut that we got this month , soya bean hulls, maizegluten feed, citrus pulp dried , maize distillers dried grains, whey permeate, palm kernal expellar, wheat feed, barley, rape seed meal, magnesium oxide, palm oil, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate. the ingredients can change from month to month depending on price i suppose but it won,t make cereals scarce any time soon
 
its all well and good saying barley has a UFL of 1. this harvest I saw winter barley that had starch % of 65 and bushel at nearly 70:eek3:. taking that figure that sample could have a UFL of 1.15(similar value to good maize), whereas Spring barley still waiting to be cut could be down well below 1 UFL. similarly I often rolled maize and some of the loads of grains (depending where the ship was after coming from) would be massive and some would be the left overs, unfortunately allot of grade 3 maize makes it as far as our shores. I find the whole UFL system a pile of crap as its far from accurate. best to get samples of each feed done and you know exactly what you have. Allot of these rations/grain are only at best on par with good grass
 
its all well and good saying barley has a UFL of 1. this harvest I saw winter barley that had starch % of 65 and bushel at nearly 70:eek3:. taking that figure that sample could have a UFL of 1.15(similar value to good maize), whereas Spring barley still waiting to be cut could be down well below 1 UFL. similarly I often rolled maize and some of the loads of grains (depending where the ship was after coming from) would be massive and some would be the left overs, unfortunately allot of grade 3 maize makes it as far as our shores. I find the whole UFL system a pile of crap as its far from accurate. best to get samples of each feed done and you know exactly what you have. Allot of these rations/grain are only at best on par with good grass
The point of this thread was not to knock the UFL system and say it was better than or worse than ME but merely to use it as a reference when buying compound feeds and not straights so as a person has an idea what they are buying is good or bad value. There is not much point in buying shite, getting it tested (you can't test for UFL as you know) and then the test telling you that it was shite you bought.
Most of us handy operators don't buy artics of this and that just a few tonnes here and there.
 
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The point of this thread was not to knock the UFL system and say it was better than or worse than ME but merely to use it as a reference when buying compound feeds and not straights so as a person has an idea what they are buying is good or bad value. There using much point in buying shite, getting it tested (you can't test for UFL as you know) and then the test telling you that it was shite you bought.
Most of us handy operators don't buy artics of this and that just a few tonnes here and there.

Well if you regularly buy 4 ton get it tested every now and again to see what the actual energy/protein (whatever you want) figures in it are. Its pretty simple. How can you value and balance what feeds are already on your farm without spending some few bob testing to see what you have.

There are decent merchants out there providing a quality product. It pretty easy work out who they are.
 
What is the UFL of fodder and sugar beet BB?

Very interesting thread this.

I'd be of a similar general view to Ozzy about some of the grains coming from certain outlets. A few years back we had a few cattle being fed for summer finishing and ran out of our own barley and had to buy it in, it was some rubbish!!

I think this has actually led to such a rise in farm to farm trading at harvest.
 
We keep the grain from the newest tillage fields here first cut each year, the golden home saved grain I consider premium compared to the screenings I've seen some mills passing off as rolled barley. Compare it to eating a nice homemade shepherds pie made from minced steak compared to a mass produced supermarket effort containing traces of beef and gristle, I know which one makes me gain weight..
MF30
 
You dont need to be a scientist to know good quality rolled barley from poor quality but what makes it tricky is when poor quality inferior ingredients are passed off misleading in compound mixes.
 
What is the UFL of fodder and sugar beet BB?

Very interesting thread this.

I'd be of a similar general view to Ozzy about some of the grains coming from certain outlets. A few years back we had a few cattle being fed for summer finishing and ran out of our own barley and had to buy it in, it was some rubbish!!

I think this has actually led to such a rise in farm to farm trading at harvest.
1.12 fodder and 1.15 sugar beet, this is per KG of dry matter but remember beet is quite wet so it's low in dry matter so about .25UFL per kg fresh weight fed of sugar beet, it is often said that 4kgs of sugar beet has the same energy as 1kg of good barley and 5:1 of fodder beet which is higher in water if you get me.
 
its all well and good saying barley has a UFL of 1. this harvest I saw winter barley that had starch % of 65 and bushel at nearly 70:eek3:. taking that figure that sample could have a UFL of 1.15(similar value to good maize), whereas Spring barley still waiting to be cut could be down well below 1 UFL. similarly I often rolled maize and some of the loads of grains (depending where the ship was after coming from) would be massive and some would be the left overs, unfortunately allot of grade 3 maize makes it as far as our shores. I find the whole UFL system a pile of crap as its far from accurate. best to get samples of each feed done and you know exactly what you have. Allot of these rations/grain are only at best on par with good grass
Every dog on the street knows there's massive variation in the quality of all feed ingredients. That's not the point of the UFL though. It's a simple scale that compares the average feed value of different feed ingredients against the feed value of an average tonne of barley or wheat. Barley or wheat is a logical reference point as the have the highest inclusion levels. When formulating a diet you first maximise the UFL, then you ensure the ingredients to be included are of the highest quality.
 
1.12 fodder and 1.15 sugar beet, this is per KG of dry matter but remember beet is quite wet so it's low in dry matter so about .25UFL per kg fresh weight fed of sugar beet, it is often said that 4kgs of sugar beet has the same energy as 1kg of good barley and 5:1 of fodder beet which is higher in water if you get me.
What dm%beet are you working off there?
Mine is theoreticaly 22%dm
 
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