During drought conditions or winter grazing beef cattle are commonly supplemented protein to help with digestion and utilization of the dormant forages being grazed. Cattle cubes, or cake, are a common method for accomplishing this. Commercially cubes are available in two ranges of protein. Mid protein 18-24% crude protein and high protein being mostly 30% crude protein and above. Dried distillers’ grains with solubles cubes are a common cube used for the high protein in this region. In the Southern parts of the United States it is common to find a cottonseed meal and soybean meal in combination for higher protein cubes. In the upper Midwest most commonly, a high protein cube is a combination of wheat middlings, sunflower or canola meal, and some or no soybean meal. The goal is to evaluate a 100% soybean meal/soyhull cube formula with two other formulas containing wheat middlings. This project is to evaluate the three cube formulas for durability and processing efficiency at the Northern Crops Institute Feed Production Center. The three formulas will be balanced to a target protein of 30% putting them in competition nutritionally with a DDG cube. Cattle under the management of NDSU Animal Science Department will use the cubes to supplement their cattle. The exact layout of a feeding study is still being determined by Zachary Carlson.

Objective 1: Evaluate cube formulas 1, 2, 3 for pellet mill energy efficiency; Tons per hour throughput, Record start time and completion time of 4 ton runs, kWh per ton of feed, Use of AMEC power logger to determine energy consumed by pellet mill, Boiler usage, Comparison of conditioning temperatures and feeder speeds to estimate boiler use.

Objective 2: Record conditioning characteristics and moisture evaluation; Cold mass temperature, Gauge read out on surge bin prior to conditioner, Conditioned mass temperature, Gauge read out on end of conditioning chamber, Estimated and measured moisture addition, Estimated - ~16.1° C change in temperature will be 1% added moisture, Calculated - Cold mash sample and conditioned mash sampler ran on the OHAUS moisture analyzer at NCI Feed Mill Lab, Moisture removed in cooling, Calculated with OHAUS moisture analyzer compared to the conditioned sample.

Objective 3: Feed quality and handling; Tumble box method, Basic, Tumble 500-gram samples for 10 minutes, Modified, Tumble 500-gram samples for 10 minutes with added nuts, Product Densities, Cubic foot box densities to aid in bin capacity calculations, mash and final cubes.

Deliverable 1: Final report with suggestions to the feed milling industry on an approach to get a good quality cube that is high in soybean meal. Soybean meal in itself can be tough to pellet at high percentages of a formula. This may be amplified with making cubes. This would include pellet die specifications used, conditioning parameters, energy data, and final pellet durability numbers.
Deliverable 2: Shot 1-page flyer style format that encompasses information from manufacturing and eventual feeding by NDSU animal science that can be distributed to regional feed mills.

Update:
See Attached Document.

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Updated May 7, 2024:

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North Dakota sits in the heart of beef cattle grazing country. Between Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota in the 2017 USDA census there was just under 4.5 million cows and heifers in the tri-state area. The large majority of these herds are on pasture ground that commonly falls under drought conditions and cattle are fall grazed on dormant pasture or crop residue. By no means would this consume all of the soybean meal that will be produced in North Dakota. It can be an excellent fit though for the livestock population in the area. Assuming 50% of the cattle crop in that three-state region were in a severe drought cubes may be used as soon as July and be fed through the point where there is enough snow the cows cannot graze dormant pasture or residue, say the end of December. If even 20% of those cattle in drought (10% of 4.5 million) were supplemented for 6 months at 2 pounds per head per day it would consume 44,500 ton of soybean meal figuring the cube to be roughly 55% soybean meal. In a “normal” year when cubes are commonly feed late August through late November it would be closer to 29,700 ton of soybean meal. This is about 4.5% and 3% of the meal that a plant the size of Casselton would produce respectively. 2 pounds per head per day is typically a low end feeding for cubes. In severe years feeding rates may be as high as 8 pounds. With cattle they do not need protein supplementation every day. Many studies have shown that cows can be supplemented once every three days and potentially once every six days. Having a higher protein supplementation can cut down on chore time as that feed may not have to be delivered as often.