Wheat Middlings Offer Benefits as Cattle Feed

During the wheat milling process, 72 to 75 percent of precleaned wheat becomes flour and the remaining 25 to 27 percent is available as wheat by-product. These by-products include millfeed, wheat mill run or wheat middlings. The largest use of these mill by-products is for livestock consumption.

USDA production estimates rank Wheat Middlings second to soybean meal as the dominant by-product used in the commercial feed manufacturing industry. The availability of wheat middlings is limited to a large degree by the seasonal level of production and demand for flour. Quite often, wheat middlings prices slip in relationship to their feed value in the spring and early summer before strengthening in the fall and winter months.

ZProblems associated with their usage were mold spoilage and bridging when attempting to store wheat middlings long term and other obstacles such as their bulk properties, dust and windage losses. Pelleting or cubing of the wheat middlings solve most of the problems of storage and handling.

Other factors are also improved through the pelleting process which makes middlings an attractive feedstuff for livestock producers.

"Nutritionally, the by-product is really the valuable part of the kernel," said Dale Blasi, who spearheaded a research project on the value of wheat middlings for Kansas State. "High protein content makes wheat midds a natural cattle feed."

The research produced valuable information on the nutrient content and their value as an energy/protein source for growing cattle and their use in finishing rations. The studies suggest that wheat middlings can replace up to five percent of the grain or at least 50 percent of the roughage portion of finishing rations.

The research was conducted by Kansas State research and extension personnel with financial support from Peterson Laboratories, Inc. and the major flour mills in Kansas along with Kansas wheat producers through the Kansas Wheat Commission.

Wheat Middlings contain approximately 40 percent neutral detergent fiber which is highly digested in the rumen. Therefore, when fed to ruminates consuming low-quality forages, wheat middlings do not elicit the negative impact on fiber digestibility and subsequent decline in forage intake to the extent seen when cattle are fed high starch-containing feedstuffs. Hence, the "fiber friendly" nature of energy provided by wheat middlings permits total energy intake of the ruminant to increase at little or no expense to utilization of low quality forage.