Blended amino acid products can offer the best of both worlds.
Historically, the cost of metabolizable protein has accounted for 40-60 percent of the cost of a dairy ration. High protein feeds also suffer some of the most volatile price fluctuations. Blood meal may be one of the most extreme instances of this. As an example, since January 2020, blood meal prices have fluctuated between a low of $590 and a high of $2,300 per ton (Figure 1). In addition to variability, the average price has steadily increased by roughly $10.50 per month.
Some of this variation and increase in price can be explained by market conditions, such as the number of animals on feed and the number of animals slaughtered. These numbers are highly variable and impacted by a variety of factors, such as cow herd size, calving season, drought and forage availability, severe disease events, feed prices and consumer purchasing practices.
The incorporation of blood meal into diets as a tool to drive energy corrected milk is also growing year over year. This additional market demand places a strain on a limited supply of high-quality product. Reductions in dairy margins can affect producers’ willingness to pay higher prices for blood meal, in turn reducing prices.
Heat- or chemically-treated bypass soybean meal is the other frequently used high-protein feed ingredient, and historically the price moves very similarly to raw soybean meal price. Over the last five years, soy prices have bottomed out at $294 and reached as high as $545 per ton. Unlike blood meal prices, the cost of soy proteins doesn’t have as consistent an increase month over month in the average price, having increased only $2 per month since January 2020.
So do dairy producers just have to weather these swings? Or is there another option?
Another Solution: Custom Blends
One alternative source of protein is blended products that utilize quality control, specific sourcing and a variety of ingredients to provide alternatives to commodity ingredients. For example, the Papillon Agricultural Company amino acid blend, Excelene Pass, included in Figure 1 is designed to mimic the nutrient profile of average blood meal using a blend of animal rendered proteins and plant products. This blend ranged between $550 and $1,730 per ton. Though it shows a similar steady increase in price over time, price volatility was reduced by around 15% compared to commodity blood meal.
Balancing For Performance and Price
Does this make soy protein the best buy? The results are a little more complicated than that. The contribution to dietary metabolizable protein and amino acids is not equal between these different proteins. The concentration of digestible amino acids in average blood meal and the blended protein example are almost double that of bypass soy and almost triple that of soybean meal. If we correct for that by expressing price on a cost per pound of essential amino acids delivered by the ingredient, the volatility of blood meal remains, but the spread between bypass soy and blood meal is much tighter (Figure 2).
Additionally, the blended protein continues to smooth out the price volatility of blood meal and provides an even more cost-effective source of essential amino acids. Out of the three options explored, it was the most cost-effective source of essential amino acids 60 percent of the time. This shows the economics of high-protein feed ingredients go well beyond cost per ton. Price variability and cost per unit of nutrients delivered play an important role in determining how these ingredients can affect a dairy’s profitability.
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