Concentration of digestible and metabolizable energy and digestibility of energy and nutrients by growing pigs in distillers dried grains with solubles produced in and around Illinois

Illinois is one the major corn producing states in the nation, and much of the corn produced in Illinois is used to produce ethanol. In recent years, ethanol plants have been centrifuging solubles, and the resulting distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) contains less fat than conventional DDGS. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to determine if the concentration of DE and ME in DDGS produced in and around Illinois varies among plants. Twenty-four barrows (average initial BW: 28.1 ± 1.8 kg) were randomly allotted to 1 of 24 dietary treatments in a 24 × 8 Youden square design with 24 diets and 8 periods. Approximately 250 kg of DDGS was procured from 23 ethanol plants, and a corn diet and 23 corn–DDGS diets were formulated. Results indicated that only 3 of the 23 sources of DDGS could be categorized as conventional DDGS with more than 10% acid hydrolyzed ether extract, whereas the remaining 20 sources of DDGS contained between 5 and 10% acid hydrolyzed ether extract, thus categorizing these sources as low-oil DDGS. The concentration of DE in conventional DDGS was greater (P < 0.05) than in low-oil DDGS, and the concentration of ME tended (P = 0.066) to be greater in conventional DDGS than in low-oil DDGS. These observations indicate that almost all ethanol plants in and around Illinois remove some of the fat from the solubles, but this practice will reduce the energy value of the DDGS that is produced.