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Bulls- High forage ration?????

This is a topic that will be discussed 'till the cows come home (no pun intended). If you are a bull buyer, let your money do the talking. If you see that a seedstock producer is advertising bulls fed a high roughage diet, then ask them specifically how much of each ingredient they are feeding their bull.
If you are a seedstock producer the your customers will let you know with their checkbooks if you are doing the right thing.
We are seedstock producers. We raise the type of cattle that our biggest customer wants. We feed the way our biggest customer wants. Our biggest customer is ourselves. We use more of our home raised bulls on our commercial cow herd than anyone. Thus we want to see some flesh on the bulls when they are turned out, but we also want them to be able to breed for many seasons. We also expect those bulls to hold most of that flesh for the breeding season. In order to achieve this, after weaning they are fed a ration designed for them to gain 2.5 pounds per day. Depending on the way the silages tests this is usually about 35-40% barley and 60-65% silage on a dry matter basis (this year wheat mids pencilled out better so the ration has the same amount of energy but is 50% mids and 50% silage). They are put back on grass usually sometime in May. We start feeding this same ration usually about November 1 (these dates of course are dependent on the grass situation). Under this management the average yearling weight is around 1000 pounds and the average 2 year old weights are around 1800 pounds. I don't know if you call this a high roughage diet or not. The term 'high' is a relative term. You can decide for yourself.
We hold a bull sale every year in April so in three weeks we will see if the rest of our customers agree with the way we do things.
 
Grassfarmer
Sure the genetic predisposition is set at birth. And the offspring are always changing depending on the breeding. The only true way to tell what the genetic potential a bull has been given by his parentage is to put them on a feed test. This does not mean hammering the bull with barley, nor does it effect the bull later in life if the proper amounts of grain are fed. The best indicator of a maternal sire is a bull that is on test and does not necessarily achieve the highest rate of gain, maintains a moderate frame , and has a mother that is maternal. Not doing a performance test on beef animals is akin to trying to select fertile cows that milk when they have never been exposed to a bull. I have been stung (once ) on an over fat bull. It was an expensive learning experience, but it taught me a valuable lesson that all my customers benefit from.
 
Denny is correct, fat bulls sell better. i was talking to my dad last night about a particular bull sale and we both agreeded that the bulls looked PIG fat. he had heard that this particular producer will have the bull in that condition for the sale, but they will go on a diet the next day. when the bulls are delivered they will have a much greener look to them. why would the producer do this.......??? it's simple, fat bulls sell better. agree or disagree, thats just the way it is.(at least 99% of the time)
 
grass into beef do you ultrasound your bulls-I got a sale catalogue the other day that had bulls with 3/4 inch of backfat-I think they might be a bit overdone. I'm planning on stopping in to check out your critters next time I'm out that way. I agree the best way for a rancher to weigh in on the fat bull deal is to vote with their cheque book.
 
Fat Bulls do sell better, so if I am a seedstock producer, do I want fat bulls? If I am buying bulls, I want a well grown, but not fat bull. It is a shame that the bull producer that is doing it right may seem to get the short end of the sale, but over the years, he is the fella that has a sustainable business. Some of these over fat bull producers are a flash in the pan. I have bought bulls from a second generation producer that has stayed the coarse, but now the third generation is assuming management of the Limo herd, and I don't like what I see. I would commend the producer that is absolutly honest about rations, value, genetics, performance, knows how to use a knife, and backs his product. He will survive. I really like to watch the feet and avoid the ol' lobster toed animal. That seems to go with a bull that has been pushed too hard.
 
I know this - you can't hide the inferior bulls feeding this way and that is good. We used to take them to a bull test and gain 3.5-4 lbs./day and the bad ones looked pretty good at the end. It makes it a lot easier for me to cull the bottom and give the customers the good ones this way
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Very good point. I have started feeding out some culls to sell as beefs and after a few months on feed those bulls had me second guessing my cull decisions. That conditioning sure hides the flaws.

However to get back on point the game won't change until the BUYERS start demanding it.
 
Well said as usual NR. One question though. For a breeder that gets his bulls too fat, the ones that melt come fall, why do guys keep coming back to buy them next year? If you truly don't like how your bulls hold up and you keep going back then there's no one to blame but you. If a breeder/feeder ran out of customers eventually maybe he would get the clue. Until then he is only feeding bulls the way his customers apparently want them.
 
Just Ranchin said:
I talked to a breeder the other day and mentioned that his bulls were getting loose. Turns out they were getting 23 lbs of grain. I gasped, reached for my heart and started convulsing. I then open up his book, and wouldn't you know it "These bulls are fed with you the customer in mind, as they are not pushed developed slowly on a high roughage ration". I wanted to beat him with his own sales catalogue.
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Technically there's a huge difference between roughage and forage. Forage as we think of it dang sure don't come in a bag or a creep feeder.
 
I have no idea why they keep going back-maybe some guys just get addicted to the whole deal-lord knows Leachman's never had trouble drawing a crowd and he'd try and convince you a threel legged Ayrshire was the next hot thing. I'll stick to the little low key deals where at least you know the cattle work and the money is real. One of the most frustrating deals Iever sold a bull into-he got him then fed the crap out of him so he'd look nicer after he got him. I often wonder what the cost of production is on some of the fatties-it must be alot- I worked on a Charolais outfit out of college-about 400 mother cows that were ranched. One of my jobs was to feed about a 100 coming twos out in the hills-those bulls were lean breeding machines. Old Bill told me if you can't burn your registration papers and still pay your bills you might be in the wrong business.
 
My understanding is a 3# gain /day ration is needs to have about a net energy gain {Neg} of 52. If you use the default numbers on most feed programs that is about 1/2 corn silage and 1/2 corn grain. Maybe a "high forage" ration to some. As I understand, this is a common ration to "grow" bulls out.
Now if you are using barley as the grain portion, it only has a Neg of 52, not leaving much room for forage.
The old Scottish vet I used to buy Simmi bulls from used 1 pail of screenings pellets per 5 bulls.
I don't think you will ever catch anyone with any Scotch in their genes fattening them like hogs for the sale and then melting them down before delivery. LOL
 
Northern Rancher said:
I often wonder what the cost of production is on some of the fatties-it must be alot ......Old Bill told me if you can't burn your registration papers and still pay your bills you might be in the wrong business.
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I really like that line of thinking NR - my Dad insisted on that when I got into purebred stock. They had to be profitable sold as commercials or we weren't getting into it. No showing, clipping, washing, primping or fancy feeding - we are breeding cattle for the commercial producer.
A lot of guys that say they need to be heavy and fat as yearlings to sell claim they can''t afford to sell them below a certain (usually inflated IMHO) price, then again you see lots of cheap yearlings advertised every year. I think a lot of people lose a lot of money feeding bulls. We certainly don't have a lot of expense in our forage raised coming twos. We are a cheap and (generally) cheerful operation :lol:
 
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?
 
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.
 
Denny said:
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.
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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.
 
elwapo said:
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?
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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.
 
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.
 
Just Ranchin said:
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.
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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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