A:   I think your question is how much distillers grains, roughage, and/or supplement (liquid) to feed to optimize performance. If so, then my comments will be related to what gives the greatest gain (ADG) for the lowest feed conversion (lb of intake per lb of gain).

I would encourage you to visit our "byproduct feeds" tab and read the coproducts for beef cattle article to get more complete information.

As a general rule, you will likely want to feed between 5 to 12% alfalfa on a DM basis. This is quite a range, but it is very dependent on how you manage the cattle, call feed or bunk management, and what other ingredients you are feeding. If you have had challenges related to bloat, digestive deads, or keeping cattle eating (i.e., "on feed"), then you may feed in the upper range of these levels. Now, if you don't want to use alfalfa but would prefer silage, then a fair assumption is that silage is 50% roughage, 50% grain, so you need twice as much in the diet on a DM basis. For example, if you are feeding 8% alfalfa hay and it is working fine, but this year you want to change to silage, then I would recommend feeding 16% as a starting point to equate to 8% alfalfa. If you want to use a lower quality forage (which works fine with wet distillers grains) such as corn stalks, wheat straw, etc, then you should replace things on an equal fiber (neutral detergent fiber, or NDF) basis. For example, if alfalfa is fed at 8%, and it is running 50% NDF, then you are feeding 4% NDF. Now, if you change to wheat straw which is 80% NDF for this example, then you would want to feed 5% wheat straw (4% NDF/0.80 which is the NDF %). I would not recommend feeding less roughage with diets containing distillers grains versus no distillers. (see 2006 Nebraska Beef Report by Josh Benton on different roughage levels and sources in diets containing wet distillers grains)

The type of corn is important, and you could feed high-moisture, dry-rolled, or whole corn as the easiest options. (see 2007 Nebraska Beef Report by Mark Corrigan on different corn processing types and wet distillers grains plus solubles levels)

More importantly is whether you mean wet or dry distillers grains. If you are talking dry distillers grains plus solubles, then I would recommend feeding 20% on a DM basis. Whether you do this or not depends on corn price. However, at 20% inclusion, you should expect about 125% the feeding value of corn and no need to protein supplementation. (see 2007 Nebraska Beef Report by Crystal Buckner on evaluating levels of dry distillers grain plus solubles)

If you mean wet distillers grains, then I would feed 30 to 40% on a DM basis assuming you are feeding it with whole, dry-rolled, or high-moisture corns. (see 2006 Nebraska Beef Report by Kyle Vander Pol on evaluating levels of wet distillers grains plus solubles).

As for a supplement, liquid or dry would work okay. The main needs in the supplement with high enough levels of distillers is calcium, trace minerals, vitamin A and E, and any drugs or feed additives. If you are feeding a large amount of distillers grains, then dietary sulfur can be elevated. In that case, I would recommend 200 mg of thiamine.

Lastly, all of the percentages that I have given are on a DM basis, which is quite different that the "as-is" or as-fed percentages. You need to have ingredients on an as-is basis to accurately weigh out ingredients when you feed. However, the only nutritional important diet composition and recommendations are on a DM basis. For example, you will need to weigh out 50% wet distillers grains (approximately) in most finishing diets to equate to 30% on a DM basis because the wet distillers will contain 65% water and is replacing mostly dry ingredients. Therefore, you have to weigh out extra to offset the water.