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Grassfarmer
Rancher
Joined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 1002
Location: Central Alberta, Canada
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 Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| Denny wrote: |
If all your getting for bulls is steer price why bother with it.
Another thing what percent of cattle are fed on a ration of silage and by-products a hell of alot more than grass fed. I would think you need to have cattle that can convert these feed stuffs effiecently. This grass fed hoopla will never get very big there's no land base for it in the united states. I rent some pretty marginal hayfields that put up a 1/2 to a ton of hay per acre corn silage on those acres would generate 10 to 15 ton per acre.With a growing world population we will need to get as much as possible out of our acres and our genetics.
You can feed bulls a ration of hay/silage/corn and not ruin them you just need to use some common sense. If your cows are worth a damn the calves should be weaning off the cow in the 600#to 700# range if they have proper nutrition. And no creep either just good summer grass,pond water and minerals.That makes a target weight not that hard to attain.This would be on march born calves which is the majority here.
Draw a 50 mile circle around your home thats where 90% of your bulls are heading. How many grassfed guru's in that circle.Here 95% of those guys are selling feeder cattle in the fall so they want high weaning weights and high yearling weights so the feedlot comes back next year.I don't know but one grassfed guru here and he's into those lowline cattle anyhow.
There is a corner for everyone in this business and the customers will decide who get's a bigger slice of the pie. |
You make an awful lot of false assumptions to defend the status quo Denny IMHO.
Who said anything about getting steer price for bulls? Our grass-fed steers net us $400+ more than commodity fed cattle price. Our bulls net us $900 more than our grass-fed steers although we have to keep them over another 6 months to get that.
You portray grass-fed as some crazy way of producing fat cattle yet nearly every cow in the country grazes grass every year - our industry is almost entirely grass based although the majority are grain finished. Why select for the entire industry based on efficiency of the grain finishing - the one part that most cow/calf producers do not benefit from directly?
With a growing world population and finite fossil fuel reserves I predict that there will be more and more grass based fattening of cattle - what we cannot afford as a society is the continued burning of oil to grow corn to feed cattle.
90% of our bulls head outside a 50 mile circle actually - wider appeal is maybe a benefit of having a breed that is a little less common.
I agree with your quote "There is a corner for everyone in this business and the customers will decide who get's a bigger slice of the pie." I just have a very different perception of this industry and where it's going you than Denny.
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Grassfarmer
Rancher
Joined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 1002
Location: Central Alberta, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:52 am Post subject: |
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| elwapo wrote: |
Greybeard
We max out at 12 lbs of grain and average just over 3 lb of gain. They are eating 25-30 lbs of silage depending on the temperature. To feed 50% grain to get 3 lbs gain is definitely an indicator of poor feed conversion. But then again the guys feeding forage only probably will never know that information will they? |
I'm assuming Greybeard was talking on a dry matter basis. 30lbs of silage at 60% moisture equates to 12lbs of dry matter ie a 50% ration when fed with 12lbs of dry grain.
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Big Swede
Member
Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 799
Location: South Dakota
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| I don't raise bulls but I have been custom feeding yearling bulls for a few years. They get the same ration that is limit fed to my yearling heifers but they get all they want to eat. It is 93% forage and 7% grain. They have been gaining somewhere around 2.5# per day and the most corn they ever get is less than 4# a day. Seems like they have the ability to keep gaining on grass instead of stalling out like fat bulls do. I'm no grass fed guru but it seems like the sensible way to develop bulls.
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katrina
Rancher
Joined: 14 Feb 2005
Posts: 7655
Location: East north east of Soapweed
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:49 am Post subject: Re: Bulls- High forage ration????? |
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| Just Ranchin wrote: |
| I am really starting to get frustrated with the amount of seedstock bull producers out there that claim to have a "high forage ration". We have built our business on this and now we have competing bull producers claiming the same "ranch raised" bulls even though they have seen hard feed since day 1. It seems like everybody says it even though you go to their yard and the bulls are on a finishing ration that is "a high roughage ration". It seems like it is what people "should" put in their catalogue, even though they are point blank lying. Also, how in the hell are some of these bulls weighing 1300+ on a "high roughage ration" when a feedlot is happy if he can have a 1350 lbs finished steer at 14 months? Amazingly, I feel better now. |
Yup........ From our end..... a buyer....... We quit the dog and pony show and raise our own bulls.... We too was frustrated with the very same reason plus about a zillion others.....
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turning grass into beef
Member
Joined: 27 Mar 2009
Posts: 69
Location: Saskatchewan
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Northern Rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 12235
Location: saskatchewan
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:38 am Post subject: |
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| Breed Lad tosome of those good Shorthorns and I'll be a customer for the heifer calves. I was just curious asbout ultrasound the shorthorn bulls usually carcass trest well at the Vermillion bull test. They aren't still testing bul;ls at Lipton are they?
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per
Rancher
Joined: 22 Dec 2007
Posts: 6090
Location: SW Alberta
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Northern Rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 12235
Location: saskatchewan
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| IT gives you an idea how 'hot' they've been fed for sure.
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turning grass into beef
Member
Joined: 27 Mar 2009
Posts: 69
Location: Saskatchewan
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Northern Rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 12235
Location: saskatchewan
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:12 am Post subject: |
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| Pretty sure some at Vermillion college-there usually is.
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Northern Rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 12235
Location: saskatchewan
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Angus 62
Member
Joined: 30 Jan 2010
Posts: 122
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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| The biggest problem with hog fat bulls are nuts and feet [not necessarily in that order]. What a lot of people don't realize is that fat deposited in testicles can affect a bulls breeding potential the rest of his life. He might pass a semen test but the quality and volume are compromised. As more people calve later their bulls are expected to breed in hotter weather. Heat can affect semen production. When they end up with late bred cows or opens none of them think that their bull battery may have been the problem as some took a powder in the summer heat.
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). We have had the odd inquiry from Australia and the U.S. about that but not our local customers.
