Recently two different data sets are available that highlight ‘normal’ performance in production facilities. While these data sets have some overlap between producers providing input, for the most part they represent different segments of the US and North American production industry.

The data reviewed by Stalder (2014) includes the majority of the production systems in the Southeast and southern plains regions. It also includes several of the larger production systems in the upper Midwest. The systems in this data set tend to use diets with higher levels of dietary fat additions and often pellet their diets in owned/controlled feed mills.

The data from the MetaFarms record system tends to represent more upper Midwest and Canadian producers. In many instances they have on-farm feed processing or use toll mills with limited pelleting capabilities. The diets tend to include higher levels of DDGS as an ingredient due to the localized availability and pricing of this ingredient.