4-H Calves

[BuckJones]

Just joined this forum!

Sharing some of the calves we just purchased for 4-H.
They are all purebred Limo's. Not the greatest calves for the show aspect of it, but should make some good carcasses. 3 of the four were meant to stay as bull calves...but we wanted them.

All are born in April. WW: 650-690. Price: $1.25/lb. Up 25% from last year. Pics are all a month old. They all have their shaggy winter fur now.

First:

Weight: 650.

Second:

Weight: 660 lbs

Third:

Weight: 675

Fourth:

Pasture we picked em from:

Target weight at their show is 1300-1400 lbs for end of August 2011. The Champions picked in that show have been >1400 lbs for the past two years, but it takes too much feed to get them that big so we picked a more manageable size.

Purchased from hivalleylimo.com

Originally, we meant to not pick purebred steers...but we had a look at these. They were 10 mins down the road...and we couldn't say no.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Those will be high yielding calves -nice to have lots of time to get them donethe freight shouldn't of killed you for sure.

 

[Dylan Biggs]

Welcome to Ranchers Buck, those calves do look like they should produce high yielding carcasses. Is a carcass class or a live class.

 

[BuckJones]

It will be a live class. These guys will be getting up to 18 lbs of Diary Ration and 18 lbs Barley daily, with a scoop of Beet Pulp by January and will likely stay on that til show day.

The first calf pictured is a full brother to the one we had from these guys last year. He took first in his class.

Good thing we don't have carcass competition because he only came back Grade A.

 

[miocene]

welcome aboard ''buckjones'' i am a beef leader for the "rose lake club "your steers are in the right weight range. for show and sale,next august.your goal for march 6th weigh in should be 850-900. then i would feed based on % of body wt. 1.5-2% along with free choice roughage.of about 1%of body wt.18# of dairy plus 18#of barley is excessive 1 or the other but not both,plus roughage is ample.in my ciub feed bills ran from 550 -850 last year.the big simmy had a feed bill of 735 all costs upto s&s.

 

[BuckJones]

Thanks for the info.

@2.5lbs/day ADG, they should be 950+ on March. 6(120 days on feed).

I have to check our feed weights again, but I went off of ~2lbs of feed/can x 4.5 cans of each/day. Our feed bills typically run ~$1000/steer.
We have started feeding free-choice (ie. they eat as much as they want). Our steers will never eat more than 4.5 cans. Even our 1500lb steers wouldn't take 5 cans (2x/day).

None of our Limos graded well last year despite placing well at show...so we will push em the best we can.

 

[miocene]

i am glad to pass on any assistance i can.your club has come along ways over the years.i like the way your club feeds as a group .you get better results that way

 

[miocene]

as a leader one of the biggest problems i find on husbandry checks is the "scoop weight"the girl with the grey steer that was second to you in weight class learned how to use a scale after our cowcamp at horsefly and found out she needed to double her feed

 

[Denny]

36#s of grain per day that's way to much for my liking. At that ration they should weigh 1300#s in 6 months

 

[miocene]

denny-36# is wrong i've seen these steers.i would think they're topping out at 20# plus roughage.

 

[BuckJones]

haha. 36 is wrong. For some reason, I was thinking 18 lbs of each...at 2 lbs/scoop, it is only 18 lbs for both!

Still haven't found the records yet, but I'm pretty sure it's 3lbs for barley, and 2.5lbs for DR.
Typically, we feed 4 cans of each/day. 4*3=12lbs of barley, and 4*2.5=10lbs for DR. ~22lbs/day.
So 4.5*3=13.5 and 4.5*2.5=11.5 = ~25lbs.

To be sure, I will just have them weigh the feed again.

That wasn't me in the show ring...it was my brother. I haven't been in there for 3 years now. But, I might try my hand at showing bulls next year for Hi-Valley Limo...so maybe at the Bull S&S? Likely not, as the yearlings haven't been broken. But they are halter breaking a couple of calves I can use for next years shows!
We might finally have some homegrown calves next year!

 

[miocene]

good evening buck jones,i remember the hi valley bulls at bull sale .if i were you and wanted a job and experience in the field i would contract to get those bulls ready for bull sale.develop a feeding plan as well as a promotion&marketing strategy using last year as a floor. this would put your 4H FEEDING & SHOWING skills to work.plus develop marketing skills in the real world.i started with the simmies in 1987 ,my first animals were not great but i did learn ,it took 10 years to develop a respectable product,then a complete cull of the mother herd.to get a consistant product.which occured as the red factor was coming in and the fleckvieh were going out.at which time i added the red polled simmies to my fleckvieh cows.which is also the time i became a leader of 4h.the last 4 years have been good for me as a purebred breeder.as i get more consistancy in my herd.today at the williams lake sale my dad and i sold our calves. 123 head {61 h/c,62s/c avged.597#@121.62)we are located 50 miles north of your area on the same type of grass.2 4h calves kept back weighed 610 each off truck 6 bull calves will avg.750 #. they were march 1st calves and will be ready for bullsale at w.l weighing 1400# 12 h/c will weigh 700# this is what i am doing and the results i get if you are interested in learning from me i would be glad to help you -rob

 

[VCC]

I really like the first and second calves, the third calf is really muscular but looks like he is tight gutted and you will really have to work hard to get some volume to him. The last calf looks good just a lot of leather up front.

The steer from last year looked good, but like you said needed some more time to finish.

Check the fat and protein in your dairy feed, we feed a feed that runs around 14% protein and 2.5 % fat up to 800, then we switch them to a feed that runs around 13 % protein and 5% fat. You can add supplements to your feed to adjust the fat and protein ratio.

I think the fat to protein ratio plus the digestibility of the feed are key factors on calves growing and finishing where you want them.

We feed 3 percent of their body weight up until they are consuming 25 pounds a day, and then keep them there for the rest of the time (that is unless we have to hold them or slow them down) if we add something to the feed we take something else away. So if I'm adding 2 pounds of the Stabilized Rice Bran I would take away 2 pounds of grain.

I like to add 2 pounds a day of Stabilized Rice Bran for the last 90 to 120 days. Really helps lay down an even and smooth layer of cover.

Here are 2 Calves we fed out for 4H last year. 1st weighed 1410 the other 1320 (well I could not get them to post)

http://ranchers.net/photopost/data/500/medium/IMG00037-20100713-1922.jpg

http://ranchers.net/photopost/data/500/medium/100_1751.jpg

 

[BuckJones]

Dairy is @16% Protein and 3% fat. Not sure about the numbers for Barley, but we add that for more TDN compared to corn and oats for energy. We've also added the Beet Pulp as part of the roughage to add TDN.
At 3% of body weight, we should be feeding 20 lbs of feed. At our current schedule, we won't be getting up to that til Dec. 1. How fast is too fast to move up the feed? The leader's feed schedule actually wouldn't have us getting up to that ammount til sometime in the spring...leader hates it, but I've been advising the kids to move up their feed whenever they ask me.

Thanks alot for the info.

 

[VCC]

If they are eating between 16 to 19 pounds now your OK if it is lower than 16 you will want to get it up.

We get them up to where they are getting between 2-3 percent over a couple weeks when starting them out. The 2-3 percent is a range I would say you are usually around 2.5 percent, if a 600 pound calf was getting 18 pounds a day it might be at 750 before you up it again. You don't want to under grain them just like you don't want to over grain them. We weigh the animals once a month early on and make adjustments to feed then. Once they get near the end (last 3 months we weigh weekly to see if we need to hold them or what not) and weigh them at the same time of day each time so you can judge your daily gain.

A green calf off the pasture:

Start with 3 pounds a feeding, increasing the feed a half a pound a feeding every 3 to 4 days. It is important to watch and make sure they do not get to loose, if they start looking like they are getting to loose, back off a half a pound for a couple days, then start adding feed again.

Calf already on feed:

We just start adding a half a pound a feeding every couple of days until they hit our target. And follow the same direction if they start getting to loose.

We also feed "Pro-bios" powder twice a week to make sure they keep on track. As well as have a tube of the past around if we thank one needs help.

Free choice hay is a must when pushing with grain, grass hay works good for this, all thou we feed forage hay (3-way: oat, barley, and wheat) once they are doing fine on their feed.

Like I stated before we never get over 25 pounds total on feed, they just waste it if you do.

I would find a way to cut down your protein, 16% is good when their young but if you don't slow down the frame and start the building body early they never really get that good fat steer look. Talk to the feed mill and see what they can do for you.

Here is a couple of links that might help with feed.

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/images/pdf/beef/beef-feeds-and-feeding.pdf

http://www.steerplanet.com/?page_id=85

 

[BuckJones]

Alright. Thanks for the info again.

They get free-choice Grass Hay. Right now, they are not even getting 5 lbs of feed.

I figure adding the barley cuts down on the total average protein of the feed. According to the chart in your link, Barley is at 11%. So average protein is 13.5 for the total feed. We can also get 14 and I think 12% rations from the feed store.

We've never been able to get more than 25 lbs of feed. They may eat that much one day, but go off of feed for a few days to a week so we never go higher either.

 

[BuckJones]

Quick update pics of these calves. Got all muddy when the snow melted for a few days. Have been able to get them up to 16 lbs/day. Have been pushing them as much as possible.

Case of ringworm...not pretty.

This guy thinks he already won: