A:   Seems to me with distillers grains that a producer needs to mangage three components fairly closely. DDGS is an excellent protein and energy source. In fact our data indicates that it is a better energy source that corn. Three nutrients that need to be managed closely are fat, phosphorus, and sulfur. Fat because to much fat in a diet can cause a reduction in performance and for cattle being fed forage diets, high fat can reduce forage digestion. I recomment that the fat content of a diet not exceed 5.5% . Phosphorus is high and when feeding DDGS, P will not need to be supplemented. In most cases you will need to supplement Calcium. In calf diets I do not like to see the Ca:P ratio below 1.4:1. It seems that the sulfur content in distillers grains can be all over the place and be as low as .4% to as high as 1.3%. The maximum tolerable level for sulfur in cattle diets is .4% of the diet on a dry matter basis. My recommendation has been not to exceed 1/3 of the diet on a dry matter basis being distillers grains. We have some feedlot data where they have fed distillers at 40% of the diet on a dry matter basis. So if you were feeding a 650 to 700 pound calf 18 pounds of feed dry matter per day and 1/3 of the diet was DDGS (6 lb/hd/da) and the distillers was 1.2% sulfur, then sulfur intake is about .072 lb/hd/da and the percent of the total diet that is sulfur is .4%.

A couple of suggestion: Get an analysis from the plant that includes sulfur content and make sure that you have plenty of bunk space so that all calves have an opportunity to eat their share.