Beer residue and soybean residue have great potential

Faced with the scarcity of food caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, beer residue and soybean residue have become important food sources for livestock.

Beer residue and soybean residue solve the lack of feed and help goats eat quickly. Photo: Tran Trung.

Bu Dop district was once known as the pepper capital of Binh Phuoc province. However, since pepper's economic value has gone down, many people in Bu Dop district take advantage of the leaves from living pillars such as acacia and magenta as goats' primary food sources. As a result, many households have escaped poverty and become well-off.

However, in recent years, raising goats has grown enormously, that the available food sources are increasingly depleted. While the district's land area is limited, it isn't easy to grow more grass. Therefore, the addition of beer residue and soybean residue to the goat's feed supply is considered an essential solution for the people.

Raising goats since 2010, owning nearly 2,000 pepper pillars and more than 5,000 square meters of grass area, Mr. Nguyen Trung An's family (Tan Lap hamlet, Tan Thanh commune) also faces a shortage of food for goats.

In the rainy season, his total herd of goats can reach nearly 50, but he can only keep ten breeding females to maintain production in the dry season. However, the family's goat herd has always maintained a few hundred heads since using beer residue and soybean residue to supplement goat food.

However, compared to cattle, goats have a high feed intake if based on their body weight. Each goat can consume all the feed at 3-6%. When the number of people raising goats is increasing, the local food is not enough. People have used many by-products such as beer residue and soybean residue as food sources for goats.

"Beer residue and soybean residue are both rich in protein and rich in energy, so it has long been popularly used to raise dairy cows. Goats also belong to the category of cattle that absorb this nutrient quite well. Thanks to beer residue and soybean meal, it solves the lack of feed and helps goats eat quickly.

If green food took six months to release a litter of goats, it takes only 3.5 months. Moreover, the cost for each goat is only VND 7,000 per day. In particular, due to this supplement, goat meat is soft and juicy and is popular with consumers," Mr. An revealed.

Similarly, realizing the effect of adding beer residue and soybean meal to goats effectively, Tan Thanh Commune Goat Breeding Cooperative also boldly implemented it for its members. Currently, all 18 members of the cooperative are applying. From the initial total of 200 goats, it has now increased to nearly 500 and continues to expand.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Trong, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of Tan Thanh Goat Breeding Cooperative, said that beer residue and soybean residue effectively raise goats. However, these two by-products also have the disadvantage of short shelf life, high humidity. If without suitable preservation methods, they will be perishable and produce toxins that affect goats' health.

According to Mr. Trong, in the past, raising and trading goats was easy and convenient. Each month, the cooperative sells hundreds of meat goats, with prices ranging from VND 120-150 thousand per kilogram. Traders in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong come and buy by themselves.

However, since the Covid-19 epidemic broke out again, goats have come for sale for many months now, but there are no buyers, even though the price is only half of the previous one. However, thanks to beer residue and soybean residue, the cooperative members still maintain the production. Goat prices are gradually recovering, and farmers are grasping the market to expand the production scale.

Mr. Le Thanh Sang, Vice Chairman of Tan Thanh Commune People's Committee, said that goat prices were high and stable in the past few years when pepper prices dropped. With ready-to-eat food combined with agricultural by-products, people switched to raising goats a lot.

Particularly in Tan Thanh commune, there was a time when the number of goat-raising households accounted for 90% of the families in the commune, with a total herd of up to tens of thousands of goats, of which many families owned thousands of goat farms. As a result, people's lives are pretty stable, and goats become the primary economic source of the locality.

"Bu Dop district currently has one cooperative, one professional association, and 25 professional groups of goat raising with more than 6,200 participating households. The district will support capital for goat farming cooperatives to build slaughterhouses and cold storage in the immediate future. The long-term goal is to create a brand for Bu Dop goat meat to the market," said Mai Van Sang, Chairman of Bu Dop District Farmers' Association.