Wheat middlings (wheat midds) price

Wheat middlings are an energy feed, fed for their digestible energy. On a dry-matter basis they run about 18.2% crude protein and 79% TDN, roughly 0.83 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 89% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, Composition of Selected Livestock Feeds (FSA3043), from NRC Beef Cattle 1996 + Dairy One. The leaderboard uses them to convert each USDA report week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Wheat middlings, which the mill and feed trade almost always shortens to wheat midds, are a flour mill's co-product, the bran, shorts and fine wheat particles left once millable flour is separated out for food, so supply tracks flour milling volume rather than wheat acreage, and mills sit near both wheat country and the population centers eating the flour. A load quoted as midds and a load quoted as middlings are the same feed; the short form is what shows up on most broker sheets and mill invoices, and USDA reports it under the full name. The feed carries a useful mix of energy, protein and fiber, so dairy, swine and poultry rations all use it, more as a versatile filler than a specialty ingredient. Its phosphorus runs high relative to calcium, so a ration built around much middlings needs extra calcium to balance it. Price tends to track wheat and, on the energy side, corn, since middlings compete against both.

What decides how much exists. Wheat middlings are a co-product of making flour, not a crop grown on their own account. A flour mill separates the wheat kernel's starchy endosperm from its bran, germ and shorts; roughly a quarter to three-tenths of the kernel by weight ends up in that co-product stream, which gets blended, in varying proportions from mill to mill, into what invoices call wheat middlings or wheat mill run. K-State Research and Extension has ranked it among the highest-volume co-product ingredients in commercial feed manufacturing, trailing only soybean meal, and because the stream follows flour output, its supply tracks how hard the country's mills are running for flour, not wheat planting decisions.

A seasonal pattern tied to milling, not harvest. That link to milling rather than to a harvest gives wheat middlings its own seasonal rhythm rather than a crop's. K-State Extension has documented middlings prices commonly softening against their feed value in spring and early summer, then strengthening through fall and winter. This page's own price history moves with that rhythm week to week; a single week's reading is best read against that seasonal backdrop rather than in isolation.

Who competes for the tons. Dairy, swine, poultry and beef cattle rations all draw on the same middlings supply, competing for it on the same cost-per-pound-of-nutrient basis the leaderboard runs. Feed manufacturing adds a smaller, more specialized draw of its own: middlings' starch and protein content let it double as a natural pellet binder in compound feed, a role documented in poultry ration research (Saleh et al., 2021), competing for supply against buyers who want it purely for its nutrients.

How it gets quoted. USDA's mill-feeds report prices wheat middlings FOB the plant across six regional milling hubs: Buffalo, Chicago, Kansas, the Kansas City region, Minnesota and St. Louis. Each region prices off its own local mills, so two quotes from different hubs are not automatically comparable without checking which one each came from. The wheat middlings vs corn table on this page carries the energy-side comparison.

Wheat middlings vs corn. Wheat middlings supply energy and protein but as fiber, not starch, so their energy is more variable and generally below corn's. They are also high in phosphorus relative to calcium, which has to be balanced; Mississippi State University Extension covers the mill feeds for cattle.