Feather meal: price and protein limitations

Feather meal is cheap protein on the USDA board per pound of crude protein and dear protein per pound of lysine. In all 235 weekly reports from Feb 7, 2022 through Oct 12, 2026 it bought a pound of crude protein for less than soybean meal, at 58 to 95 percent of the cost. But its protein carries about a third of soybean meal's lysine, so per pound of lysine it cost 1.7 to 2.8 times as much in every one of those weeks.

What it is and how it is made

Feather meal is made from the feathers poultry plants remove at slaughter. Feedipedia puts feathers at 3 to 7 percent of a live bird's weight and their protein at 80 to 100 percent keratin, which is poorly digestible raw. Renderers hydrolyze it: the feathers are cooked under steam pressure (one process Feedipedia cites runs 30 to 40 minutes at 143°C, about 289°F, under 3 atmospheres), then dried and ground. Higher pressure raises the meal's pepsin digestibility but lowers its cystine, and Feedipedia gives 75 percent pepsin digestibility, from AAFCO, as the minimum for adequately processed meal.

Feedipedia's tables average 85.5 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis, with samples from 70 to 98 percent, at 92 percent dry matter. The board uses 88 percent crude protein at 92 percent dry matter, a blend of Kansas State, Colorado State and Feedipedia values, which puts about 1,619 pounds of crude protein in a ton.

Where the protein falls short

Per 100 pounds of crude protein, feather meal has about 2.1 pounds of lysine against 6.2 in soybean meal, half the methionine and under a third of the histidine. It runs long on cystine, the sulfur amino acid keratin is built from, and on threonine. Feedipedia describes its protein as deficient in lysine, methionine, histidine and tryptophan, and notes that the standardized ileal digestibility of its amino acids is highly variable, with values under 50 percent and over 70 percent recorded. When diets are formulated, it says, other protein sources should be used alongside it to cover the gap.

Cattle use it differently. Kansas State University's feedstuff tables put about 71 percent of feather meal's crude protein in the rumen-undegradable fraction, against about 30 percent for high-protein soybean meal, so dairy and feedlot buyers price it as a bypass protein. As a poultry product it sits outside the FDA rule that bars protein derived from mammalian tissues from cattle feed.

The board since 2022: cheap on crude protein

By calendar year on the board, feather meal and soybean meal averaged $579 and $463 a ton in 2022, $582 and $445 in 2023, $482 and $352 in 2024, $349 and $283 in 2025 and $392 and $328 in 2026 through Oct 12. Per pound of crude protein, feather meal averaged 74, 77, 81, 73 and 70 percent of soybean meal's cost in those years. Its price ran from $605 a ton (Sep 25, 2023) down to $280 (Jun 2, 2025).

October 2026 brought a sharp move: USDA's Oct 16, 2026 report had feather meal at $500 a ton FOB plant in both Mississippi and Arkansas, against $347.50 and $352.50 a year earlier.

Worked example: crude protein against lysine, week of Oct 12, 2026

Feather meal was $500 a ton and soybean meal $381.50 ($382 rounded), both national medians of FOB plant quotes.

1. Crude protein in a ton. Feather meal: 2,000 × 0.92 × 0.88 = 1,619 pounds. Soybean meal (89 percent dry matter, 53.5 percent crude protein): 952 pounds.
2. Per pound of crude protein. $500 ÷ 1,619 = $0.309; $381.50 ÷ 952 = $0.401. Feather meal costs 77 percent of soybean meal, which is where the cheapest-protein board ranks it.
3. Per pound of lysine. Feather meal: 1,619 × 2.1 percent = 34.0 pounds, so $14.70 a pound. Soybean meal: 952 × 6.2 percent = 59.0 pounds, so $6.46. Feather meal costs 228 percent of soybean meal.
4. Per pound of methionine plus cystine. Feather meal: 1,619 × 5.2 percent = 84.2 pounds, $5.94 a pound. Soybean meal: 952 × 3.0 percent = 28.6 pounds, $13.35. On the sulfur amino acids feather meal costs 44 percent of soybean meal.

Those are total amino acids, before digestibility. A screen on crude protein alone ranks feather meal ahead of soybean meal every week; on lysine it costs more than twice what soybean meal does.

The latest USDA week

Feather meal was $513 per ton as of Oct 26, 2026 (national median across 3 FOB plant regions, USDA), up 52% from $338 a year earlier, or $0.317 per pound of crude protein (86% of soybean meal's cost per pound of protein).

What is blood meal? covers the rendered protein priced beside it, which Feedipedia credits with up to 10 percent lysine in its protein, and the feather meal price page covers what moves the market. The Ration reports USDA's prices and does the cost-per-nutrient arithmetic on them; amino acid balance, digestibility and inclusion are the nutritionist's call.