Eduardo B. Mitra
General Manager, Farms Management Enterprises Corp.
Sta Rosa, Laguna, Philippines

INTRODUCTION

Brewer Spent Grain is a by product of Asia Brewery Inc., a major producer of beer in the Philippines. Its best points as an animal feed is it being cheap and relatively digestible bulky feed providing energy and substantial quantity of feed protein, resulting to a large decrease of need for concentrates in regular cattle rations.

In addition to being palatable, with the use of molasses, the entire twenty-five kilos of fresh feed spent grain per day can be readily consumed by cattle. This easily translates to a good feed conversion aside from cheap feed.

DISCUSSION

At FAME Feedlot in Laguna, Philippines animals are not feed with any concentrates due to the abundant deliveries of spent grain.  Several feedlots in the Philippines have already experiencing difficulties due to financial problems and they had resorted to using spent grain from Asia Brewery as alternative feed for their operation.  Part of the property of the Asia Brewery is leased by the Fame Feedlot and in return Asia Brewery has been consistent in supplying spent grain to the. FAME consumes 95% of all spent grain produced by Asia Brewery and this challenge has been answered by the increased cattle inventory numbering from 900 heads to 1,800 head.

In this way only variable costs increased while fixed cost remains the same. The farm has provided stricter animal heath measures like footbath, wheel bath and market for animal wastes.

Spent grain comes in huge volume or exactly at twenty-ton truck per day.  The addition of salt was done with spent grain to keep them fresh a bit longer but still they must be fed at most within four days after delivery and to maintain tolerable acidity levels. Chopped Napier grass and Leucaena or Ipil-ipil are maintained in the farm to supplement spent grains for cattle feeding. Sometimes these are mixed with the spent grains but due to lack of time they are just given directly to cattle in feed bunks.

CONCLUSION

The greatest challenge in the use of spent grain is how to use it at its most economical state.  Location of delivery is critical and the economics of scale or having the right number of cattle in feedlot makes all the difference.