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Need a little advice (small cow herd)....
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dlerwick
Posted 12/28/2007 11:38 (#269721 - in reply to #269577)
Subject: Re: Need a little advice (small cow herd)....


Western Nebraska
The worst thing that you are likely going to see is that your are costing yourself money you don't need to spend. You are probably already over feeding protein with a 30% tub and stalks with ear corn down. There has been a lot of research done in Nebraska about what you need to supplement when you are running cattle on corn stalks. If memory serves me correctly, when you are moving cattle fairly regularly you won't need to supplement much protein at all. I can't cite the number off hand but it would probably do you good to look up the hard data so you know exactly how much protein your cows need. If you can get it from the stalks and corn alone, go that route and save yourself a lot of money. Your alfalfa hay is probably going to be running around 20-25% protein and feeding straight alfalfa alone is probably a big waste. Health wise you probably aren't going to have problems. We fed straight alfalfa hay for years to our cows when we were calving in February and March and never had any problems with it. The big issue is that you are feeding a $100+/ton feed source when you could be feeding a $60-70/ton feed stuff and be getting along just fine. When you add in the tubs, you are probably going to be spending a lot more than you need to.

If the cows are out grazing and still finding corn, don't worry about feeding them. Dairy cows can shell a corn cob and spit the cob back out, most beef cows don't seem to learn that trick until they are old. If you see them spitting the cob back out, then they might be getting too much corn. Most likely they are chewing the whole thing up so they don't have much chance of over doing the corn. The cob will act as a buffer and they should be fine. Check out the BCS ratings that the other poster mentioned. Don't worry about getting it exact, what you really need to look for is backbone protrusion, pin bones, and ribs. If you can't see the ribs or pin bones, then they are fine. If you can't see the backbone at all, they are too fat.

Where are you located? That might give us a little better idea of what you have to deal with so our recommendations might be a little better.
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