There has been a very large increase in feed costs in the past 5 to 7 years, and in particular in the past year. In turn, this means that the cost of energy in the diet has also increased. The calculations in Table 1 reveal two very important points. First, energy from basal ingredients has increased more than 4 fold in the past 7 years. Second, the relationship of energy cost among ingredients has also changed; whereas corn DDGS and wheat middlings used to be cheaper sources of energy than corn, they are actually more expensive now. And whereas energy from soybean meal used to be 3.9 times the cost of that in corn, it is now only 2.6 times more expensive.