Bulls- High forage ration?????

[turning grass into beef]

Northern Rancher - No we don't ultrasound. We have never had a customer from Canada inquire about that (until now if you consider yourself a customer ). We have had the odd inquiry from Australia and the U.S. about that but not our local customers.

As for the ration discusion; if you are not talking on a dry matter basis then you are not comparing apples with apples. Also, pounds per head per day gives no information if the weight of the animal is not given.
Greybeard - My ration program has barley listed at 66 mcal/cwt for NEg. Most finishing feedlot rations will be about 85-90% grain and 10-15% silage (dry matter basis). This equates to a NEg of around 61mcal/cwt. I design our ration for the bulls at 47 mcal/cwt. One more number for frame of reference is that the ration we feed to the heifer calves (replacements and grass heifers) is 40 mcal/cwt. Heifers should do about 1.75 pounds of ADG on this ration.

 

[Northern Rancher]

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?

 

[per]

Northern Rancher - No we don't ultrasound. We have never had a customer from Canada inquire about that (until now if you consider yourself a customer ). We have had the odd inquiry from Australia and the U.S. about that but not our local customers.

As for the ration discusion; if you are not talking on a dry matter basis then you are not comparing apples with apples. Also, pounds per head per day gives no information if the weight of the animal is not given.
Greybeard - My ration program has barley listed at 66 mcal/cwt for NEg. Most finishing feedlot rations will be about 85-90% grain and 10-15% silage (dry matter basis). This equates to a NEg of around 61mcal/cwt. I design our ration for the bulls at 47 mcal/cwt. One more number for frame of reference is that the ration we feed to the heifer calves (replacements and grass heifers) is 40 mcal/cwt. Heifers should do about 1.75 pounds of ADG on this ration.

The last dozen bulls I have purchased were utrasounded. Not many are doing it but it keeps me going to those that do. I think as a tool it is at least as important as EPD's.

 

[Northern Rancher]

IT gives you an idea how 'hot' they've been fed for sure.

 

[turning grass into beef]

Douglas, Manitoba is the only place in Western Canada that I know of that has shorthorn bulls on test. I didn't know that Vermillion still had shorthorns.
As Far as EPD's are concerned we supply them, but I don't have much faith in them. A long time Hereford breeder that my brother helped at Calgary Bull sale was once asked if his bulls had EPD's. He just smiled and replied "naw, we vaccinated for them years ago" :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

 

[Northern Rancher]

Pretty sure some at Vermillion college-there usually is.

 

[Northern Rancher]

www.lakelandcollege.ca/bulltest

 

[Angus 62]

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.

 

[Dylan Biggs]

Northern Rancher - No we don't ultrasound. We have never had a customer from Canada inquire about that (until now if you consider yourself a customer ). We have had the odd inquiry from Australia and the U.S. about that but not our local customers.

As for the ration discusion; if you are not talking on a dry matter basis then you are not comparing apples with apples. Also, pounds per head per day gives no information if the weight of the animal is not given.
Greybeard - My ration program has barley listed at 66 mcal/cwt for NEg. Most finishing feedlot rations will be about 85-90% grain and 10-15% silage (dry matter basis). This equates to a NEg of around 61mcal/cwt. I design our ration for the bulls at 47 mcal/cwt. One more number for frame of reference is that the ration we feed to the heifer calves (replacements and grass heifers) is 40 mcal/cwt. Heifers should do about 1.75 pounds of ADG on this ration.

Now these are numbers that actually mean something. Hard to have a meaningful discussion on rations without some way to compare apples to apples. Good post thanks!

 

[Grassfarmer]

Good post Angus62. Excess heat in July is not normally a big issue up here - we don't often get too hot.
NR mentioned in another post about the poorest conception rates you get being from big "stale" heifers. Doesn't this apply exactly the same to the males of the species? If I bought out of Calgary bull sale I'd get a 1400lb yearling or a 2000+lb 2 year old - in early March. It's winter here, regardless of how I fed him he would slide in condition through to grass time and likely beyond. What will his semen quality and production be like under these conditions? Won't he just be a big stale bull?
Our "underfed" forage raised bulls on the other hand will hit the grass running - ours, and most of our customers, bulls don't go out till mid July. These bulls will probably be gaining 2.5-3lb a day from late May through to July - wouldn't that naturally result in them producing vastly better quality and quantity of semen? Our semen tests in May suggest this is the case.

I read recently an article about feeding bulls in their off season - how you would need to feed to gain back the 200lbs they lost breeding plus allow for them still growing. Given that most guys calve in spring the breeding season tends to be summer, they get pulled in the fall and stand all winter with nothing to do. In my opinion if the bull isn't able to maintain condition on the summer grass that a cow is rearing a calf on, he's not a great flesher. He should certainly be able to make up condition on fall grass before winter. Our biggest problem is keeping bulls from getting too fat over winter.

 

[Northern Rancher]

A bull ghaining weight freezes better quality and more volume of product than a fattie. Some of the Calgary Bull Sale chumba whumbas hget to be old friends at the A'I stud. Dairy bulls produce way better than beef bulls because they deal with infertility they don't make it a rare desired commodity.Trust me when an A'I stud tells you a bull isin short supply its not necessarily because he's selling well.

 

[PATB]

Why shouldn't the bulls be raised the same as your heifers? If a bull excells well on the same feed as cows and heifers then his offspring have a better chance on the same feed regiment. Whats the saying "buy your breeding stock from some one who manages their animals the same as you or harder"?

 

[Dylan Biggs]

Another problem with overfed bulls in addition to feet, fat in the scrotum affecting fertility, and liver problems, is the adjustment the rumen has to go through in the ration transition from the feedlot to the breeding pasture. Depending on breeding season relative to departure from the lot it can take 2 weeks or more for the rumen flora to make the adjustmnet. If the bull is breeding during this transition he won't be getting the feed value out of the grass at the same time as he is going from couch potato to the rigors of breeding with the demands that will place on him. It is no wonder fat bulls shrink like a plastic bag in a grass fire.

 

[Just Ranchin]

Been gone for a couple days...it looks like I started a bit of a firestorm. Too many comments to talk on, but I will comment on the use of silage. We do feed a TMR on the bulls of barley/oat silage, alfalfa hay and 13% screenings pellets. The bulls are getting 20 lbs of silage (35% DM), 11 lbs hay and 8 lbs pellets. This is a 48 NEG diet showing a projection of 2.75 lbs/day. Some bulls are blowing that out of the water, others are well below. (Thus a magical thing called genetic expression). The pellets contain 25% barley, 25% mill run and 45% screenings. What people often don't take into account is the moisture and grain content of the silage. It is not hard to get 40% grain in either barley or corn silage, but you still classify it as a forage. I recently saw a sale catalogue stating they feed a 70% as fed forage diet, and magically the bulls were gaining 4.5 lbs a day. Either one amazing herd, or a really wet silage.

 

[PureCountry]

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.

Why?

 

[leanin' H]

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.

Why?

Because that's what a good cow ought'a do......... Raise a calf halfway or better to finish weight. Our useless old Angus steer calves are weaning off the mountain in mid October at 650 with the cream breaking 700. I for one, don't want my bull fed like a fat beef. I want him fed a ration that gets him in good flesh without being a tub of lard. But we have bought bulls that tip the scale at 1200 as yearlings. But the best we've bought were fed long stem hay with no creep and still went 1200. Breeding son of guns with no melt and looked great in the fall. I am planning to buy another one at Yardley's sale Saturday if my checkbook lets me. Il'' then post a grundle of pictures so ya'll can pour salt in the wound! :wink:

 

[Grassfarmer]

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.

Why?

Cos weaning weight equals profit don't ya know :wink:
It's easy PC you just need to get with the program - stock up on these 1100lb cows that can wean 54-63% of their weight. The country is full of them apparently - a by-product of "performance testing" your bulls to prove their suitability as terminal sires :lol: :lol:

 

[PureCountry]

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.

Why?

Because that's what a good cow ought'a do......... Raise a calf halfway or better to finish weight.

H, it's hard to express my tongue-in-cheekiness when I asked Denny "Why?", but that's how it was meant. For you or Denny or anyone to tell me what's a good cow and what ain't is like me telling you what's a good truck and what ain't. Simple - does it get the job done for you?

My cows don't wean 6 or 700lb calves, mind you my cows are 800-1200lbs and reared a little different than most. Does it mean my cows are no good? I don't think so. We have a program that works for us. Our cows wean more like 1/3-3/8 of finished weight, but do it at a very minimal cost. Those calves blossom on grass as yearlings and fatten well on pasture as 2yr olds weighing 1200lbs, then blossom into $2,500+ CDN as a 750lb food product. I'd say those girls get the job done just fine.

Different strokes for different folks. Not sayin', just sayin' bud. :wink:

 

[elwapo]

Gassfarmer
You would think that a true grazing guru would have immigrated down here to southern Alberta where we stock at about 6 cows per 1/4 section. As far as forage testing, there is nothing more of a test on cows than grazing 10 months of the year on prairie wool and cactus. While performance testing their offspring seems distastfull to forage proffesionals such as yourself, it is icing on the cake for the offspring of extreme forage tested cows.

 

[Dylan Biggs]

Gassfarmer
You would think that a true grazing guru would have immigrated down here to southern Alberta where we stock at about 6 cows per 1/4 section. As far as forage testing, there is nothing more of a test on cows than grazing 10 months of the year on prairie wool and cactus. While performance testing their offspring seems distastfull to forage proffesionals such as yourself, it is icing on the cake for the offspring of extreme forage tested cows.

Sounds a lot like our country 7 to the 1/4 here. Definitely a different environment than the rest of the province. Grassfarmer's choice of location may have had something to do with rain. Speaking of which the last 10 years or so that Medicine Hat country has been making me envious with all the rain we are missing out on that you seem to be getting.