How much does liquid feed molasses cost?

Answer 1

These products are based on molasses, which has a dry matter of 75%. As the component ingredients, including water, are added the dry matter begins to fall, usually to 55%-60%.

The products are sold on a cost per litre delivered so they have to be converted to a cost per kilogram for accurate comparison.

For example, 1 litre of a 55% dry matter molasses based product will be approximately 1.2 times the weight of 1 litre of water. So each litre costing 65c will cost 54.2c/kg ($533 ÷ 1.2 kg) or each tonne is $542 'wet'.

But the moisture content must be accounted for. In this example, if the moisture content is 55%, the dry matter cost for each tonne ($542 ÷ 0.55) becomes $985/t dry matter.

For an 8% urea content liquid supplement, eaten at 1 litre/day, this means 80 grams of urea costs 65¢ to deliver into the animal each day. In addition this cost supplies approximately 0.5 litres of molasses (or 6 MJ of energy) and the mineral additives. This is not a useful amount of energy, which is why you need more than 1200 kg DM of pasture to supply the source of energy (carbohydrate).