Chapter 4 use of distiLLers Co - produCts in diets fed to swine

Distillers co-products have been used in swine feeding for more than fifty years, but the emergence of the fuel ethanol industry during the last few decades has dramatically increased the total quantities of distillers co-products that are available to the livestock and poultry industries. New technologies have also allowed the industry to convert a greater proportion of the carbohydrates in the grain to ethanol, which in turn has resulted in distillers co-products that have a different composition than the products produced earlier. Different technologies used in the production process allow for upstream or downstream fractionation of the grain or the coproducts, which results in a number of different co-products. For the swine industry to use the co-products most efficiently, research must be conducted to measure the nutritional value of these co-products in terms of energy and nutrient digestibility. The next step is to determine the inclusion rates of distillers co-products in diets fed to different categories of pigs that will result in the greatest performance without reducing the quality of the final products. If there are other consequences of including distillers co-products in swine diets, these also need to be documented for each product.