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Farmscape
for November 12, 2009
(Episode 3344)
A Saskatoon based livestock consultant reports nutritionists have been reformulating livestock rations in order to make the best advantage of an abundance of certain feed ingredients.
Feed represents that largest percentage of the cost of raising livestock and with continuing losses in the hog and cattle sectors producers are relying on feed companies to provide the lowest cost rations possible.
Daryl Olson, the north Saskatchewan livestock consultant with Finer Feeds in Saskatoon, says it's up to livestock consultants to show producers how to take short cuts in their feeding programs to save money while providing a quality product.
Clip-Daryl Olson-Finer Feeds:
We see that there's lots of soya available right now and it's come down quite a bit.
The five year average was 4.20.
A lot of guys are contracting out at 3.66 to 3.70 which is a big deal so now all the formulas have to be reformulated to handle the soya.
We have plants now coming up with far more DDGS and not just corn distillers but also wheat distillers and they're picking it up in Lloydminster, North Battleford and things like that.
This year there's a lot of feed peas out there and hog producers think that that's a really good ingredient to be putting into their hogs.
Usually it's better toward the finisher barn but they're trying it everywhere and if that's what they have on farm the nutritionists have to make sure that we're balancing the rations for that particular barn.
Olson notes, because most of our feed ingredients are imported, the stronger value of the Canadian dollar is helping to reduce feed costs but he acknowledges costs tend to go up faster than they come down.
He encourages producers to have samples tested every time they have a load of feed brought in to ensure they are fully aware of nutritional value of that feed and are able to produce a quality carcass for the least cost.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
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Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council
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