India vet college uses corn waste for cattle feed

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  The Government Veterinary College in Hassan, India, has found a way to make nutritious feed out of corn waste.

  From WATTAgNet:
  The Government Veterinary College in Hassan, India, has found a way to make nutritious feed out of corn waste.
  Residents of the villages Halasinahalli in Hassan taluk and Harubeehalli in Belur taluk are learning how to use corn cobs and husks, which are considered waste after the grains are removed, to create feed for dairy cows.
  “Under the scheme, we have provided machines that cost INR95,000 (US$1,500) for milk producers’ societies in both the villages,” said B.N. Suresh, assistant professor at the college.
  Those machines cut the cobs and husks into a powder that is mixed with minerals and other ingredients and is then used in cattle feed.
  “We have observed that the milk production has increased and the farmers are saving money they used to spend on purchasing cattle feed,” Suresh said.
  The project aims to improve the rural economy and quality of life in rural areas.
  In 2014, Cargill India opened a dairy feed mill in Bathinda, India, to equip famers with ways to implement a reliable supply chain for dairy processing. The project was expected to generate employment opportunities for approximately 200 people, along with providing training for 20,000 farmers annually on dairy nutrition, calf rearing and farm management best practices, bringing the relevant nutrition, training and operational excellence best practices, the plant will produce nutritious diet for cows and allow for crop diversification, increasing grain usage by 12,500 metric tons per year.

Iowa cattle farmer converting sawdust into feed

An Iowa cattle farmer is converting sawdust from his lumber mill into feed for his cattle, creating a 70 percent sawdust ration that he says is nutritious, economical and green.
While animals can barely digest untreated sawdust, which consists of more than 50 percent cellulose and roughly 30 percent lignin, instituting a process to free up the cellulose provides access to the nutrients. Breaking the cellulose-lignin bond in the sawdust, according to farmer Bob Batey, is what he's doing, and then mixing the result with corn, vitamins and minerals, as well as as few other ingredients. The ration has food value equivalent to grass hay, said Batey.
Stephanie Hansen, an assistant professor in the animal science department at Iowa State University, said the process sounds like a good example of how some producers are getting creative in feeding their livestock during a time when traditional feed is expensive.
And the cattle, according to Batey's veterinarian and cattle specialist Tara Wellman-Gerdes, are perfectly healthy. Feeding sawdust eliminates all the fuel consumption, chemical inputs and intensive land use that would be required to feed grain or hay, said Wellman-Gerdes. And in an era of high grain prices and diminishing hay and pasture acreage, it "is definitely a positive" to take advantage of otherwise wasted byproducts, she said.