Dried distillers grains as a substitute for grazed forage

A 2-yr study evaluated effects of feeding dried distillers grains (DDG) to yearlings grazing native range at greaterthan- recommended stocking rates on BW gain, grazed forage quality, and forage disappearance. Thirty-six paddocks were assigned randomly to 1 of 3 treatments: 1) control, stocked at a moderate stocking rate (1.48 animal unit months/ha in yr 1, 1.06 animal unit months/ha in yr 2) with no DDG; 2) double stocked, in which stocking rate was exactly twice the control with no DDG; and 3) double stocked with 2.27 kg/d (DM) of DDG per animal. Six paddocks per treatment replication were grazed in rotation. A total of 42 yearlings (242 ± 15 kg of BW) in yr 1 and 24 yearlings (229 ± 17 kg of BW) in yr 2 were stratified by BW and assigned randomly to treatment. Diet quality was assessed using esophageally fistulated cattle, and forage disappearance and standing crop were determined by clipping twenty 0.25-m2 quadrats preand postgrazing. There was no difference (P = 0.52) in ADG between control and double-stocked-without-DDG yearlings (0.50 and 0.45 kg/d, respectively); however, those fed DDG gained more BW (1.14 kg/d; P \u3c 0.01) than did yearlings not fed DDG. Forage disappearance was lower (P \u3c 0.01) for the control treatment compared with the double-stocked treatments but was not different (P \u3e 0.05) between the 2 double-stocked treatments. Diet in vitro OM disappearance did not differ (P = 0.53) among treatments. Feeding DDG was an effective means of increasing ADG of grazing yearlings when stocking rate was doubled but did not replace sufficient grazed forage to increase stocking rate 2-fold