QUANTITY AND ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF 9 SELECTED BY-PRODUCTS USED IN CALIFORNIA DAIRY RATIONS

Food processing representatives, brokers, nutritionists, livestock pro ducers, and trade associations were surveyed to quantify 9 by-products used for feeding livestock during 1992 in California. The commodities were almond hulls, dried beet pulp, wet brewers grains, wet citrus pu lp, pressed citrus pulp, wet corn gluten feed, corn gluten meal, whole cottonseed, and rice bran. The 9 by-products contributed over 2.5 mil lion tonnes and about 27% of the total feed concentrate moved within C alifornia during 1992. Market value of these 9 by-products was almost .25 billion dollars. Whole cottonseed accounted for about 31% of the t otal tonnage of these 9 by-products and provided about 66% of the tota l CP and 53% of the total NE(L) of these 9 by-products. The by-product s were more valuable as energy sources than CP sources compared with N E(L) from corn and CP from soybean meal, respectively. Calculations of milk production, based on the CP content or NE(L) content of the by-p roducts, showed that these 9 by-products could have contributed suffic ient CP or NE(L) for over 31% of the milk produced in California durin g 1992. Ration formulations demonstrated that the economic value of by -products changed with feedstuffs available and, in general, would be used in rations over a range of market prices.