News

Substituting with wheat in livestock rations

A livestock specialist says farmers may want to consider wheat as a substitute for corn in areas where wheat is readily available.

Swine specialist Mike Tokach with K-State Research and Extension tells Brownfield farmers should compare the price of wheat to corn on a pound for pound basis.  “If wheat is anywhere less than about 105 to 110 percent of the price of corn, it certainly is something that they want to look closely at to see if they can use it in their diets.”

He says working with a nutritionist is best, but 30 to 35 percent of pig’s diets can be replaced with wheat.  “Corn and soybean meal are a little bit lower in price than what we’ve had the last four to five years, but obviously we still need to look at opportunities to lower the cost of production and using wheat or other byproduct ingredients is just one way to potentially do that.”

Tokach also recommends to feed energy dense diets during hot summer weather when heat stressed pigs tend to eat less.

Chris Reinhardt with K-State says wheat’s nutritional feeding value is five to ten percent higher than corn for cattle. While he doesn’t recommend switching from 100 percent dry rolled corn to dry rolled wheat, he says cattle can adapt to diets of 35 to 50 percent.  Reinhardt says wheat does need to be processed with a coarse crack to improve digestibility.

AUDIO: Interview Mike Tokach