The impact of the worst epidemic of avian influenza ever to hit U.S. poultry flocks has reached the ethanol industry in the form of smaller sales of distillers dried grains (DDGs), a widely used feed, says DTN. DDGs are mixed into poultry feed at a rate of 5-10 percent. A professor of poultry nutrition at U-Nebraska told DTN, “I have no doubt [bird flu] has hurt the market considerably,” since ethanol production – and the production of DDGs, a co-product – is largest in the Midwest, the same region where poultry production in largest.
Avian influenza could also reduce demand for corn as a livestock feed, said two U-Illinois economists earlier this month at farmdoc daily. Losses of nearly 50 million birds and a slow rate of repopulating infected farms “could support a 100 million-bushel decline in feed use from current projections,” they said.