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Consultant fees?

One experience we had during a severe drought (which seems to be about every other year a little south of west central SD!) we put our cows in our backgrounding lot and fed them every mouthful they got to eat.

Our son looked up nutrient content of various feeds, testing some of the hay, and adding mineral, distillers grains, and maybe more, to get the ration right to maintain their condition score.

Those cows were VERY dissatisfied, but come spring, they had obviously
'wintered' very well. Normally, our cows graze all winter, with some cake, mineral as they choose, and hay only if pastures are not adequate, or are covered with snow too deep for grazing. They do have plenty of good Missouri River, or better yet in winter, our artesian well water which comes out of the ground at 90%, but cools to about 65% or a little less in the pipelines. Big tire tanks with lids keep the water from freezing.....most of the time.

We think the cows were not satisfied because the feed was limited, or because they didn't like the change in 'lifestyle'.....confined to those pens, though they had lots of space, as opposed to being free to roam as they chose in large winter pastures.

We would far rather keep our calves in that lot and give the cows their freedom! But it is good to know it can help us survive the severe drought years and still keep some cows to start over with when rains come again.

mrj
 
My problem with consultants is the lack of legitimate independency. They can claim they are working just for you but saying doesn't always make it so,
 
Vigortone will whip up a ration for you if you give them your feed anallisis using your feed on hand and adding to it where needed. Our local feedstores just want to add a pellet of some sort.
 
My dad and I were driving down the road one day visiting, he had just got back some data on calves he had sold that had been harvested. He was pretty proud of them they were far above average for CAB qualification, they yield and graded far above avg. He went on to tell about how great these calves were and what a premium the buyer had received. I listened, knowing exactly where he was going in the conversation. I have heard from my dad since I was a little boy "You can't starve a profit". No doubt, as some of you may know, my dad has a pretty good set of cows. I started my end of the conversation with another saying my dad had taught me years ago, "You can't argue with success". With a serious tone he said that's right. Then I asked how much of that premium did he recieve, you guessed it, none. His calves sold well but not at a premium. I will get to my point.
It is very important to keep records, it is also important to right down goals. A record is to see where you have been and goals are to see where you want to go. Both allow you to make a plan and adjust it accordingly to meet your desired outcome. My Dad just fed the crap out of his cattle, they were always in good shape and easy on the eye. My point to him was how might have he put more money in his own pocket. He was satisfied with his result, which is fine it, met his needs. I am a lot more competitive than that, I don't take anyone's word for something that involves me unless they can produce a record to back it up. My dad had obviously met the need of his cattle, but had no idea whether he had exceeded it. It was obvious to me through experience and knowledge that he had, yes I am younger and dumber and have nothing to show for my success except a record. I had the opportunity to work on an outfit that pushed the envelope, I also had a record of the result and knew what the goal was.. After a lengthy time my dad was frustrated with me, I couldn't tell if it was because I didn't give him the pat on the back he was expecting or if it was because he realized he might have left some money on the table. A good solid feed program that meets the requirements of what ever class of cattle you are feeding will pay dividends in years like last year. If you just feed and have no idea what you are feeding how do you really screw down your inputs on years where feed availability is extremely limited. Most guys dug into there bank account instead of knowledge base. If you run 500 mother cows and you could cut back 5lbs of hay a day @200/ton that is $250 a day in savings or 37.5 ton a month or 5 days/month worth of feed at 30lbs/day on 500 hd. Those are just examples not true account. Point is with out a nutrition program how do you know how much feed to feed or how much you are wasting. If this scenario would have played out a nutritionist could have saved you $250/day in feed expense or 5 days worth of feed. If he charged a$500/ month for his services they would have been paid for in the 2 days of every month. Money well spent and money in your pocket. If you are satisfied with your result you continue to do what you are doing, if you you want or need more you change things. I have never hired a consultant I don't know what one is worth. If he makes you more money than what it cost to pay his wages it is a good investment. It is too bad that people wait until they have to do something different to change, if they were more open change may have been a choice instead of a must. Sorry this was so long.
 
There is a wealth of knowledge out there that is available to anyone for free.

You can keep it simple or you can make it just as complicated as you want.

Ours is/was a pretty simple operation. We never fed bulls that were being offered for sale at some point, so my comments are not directed to the bull producer. We only fed hay and mineral to cows and heifers. Even doing just that we had our hay tested, knew what a cows requirements were and how that changed with temperature. Since our operation was fairly small as far as Se Montana ranches go, we bought a hay processor with a scale underneath so we knew exactly how much hay we were feeding per head per day.The add-on price of the scale was $2500. We figured we could pay for the scale by saving 50 ton of hay valued at $50/ton over the life of the machine. It well exceeded that.

We ran our 'ration' ourselves (based on analysis of hay and requirements of cows) and got by excellent. A rancher can't afford to under-feed and they can't afford to over-feed. It's a balancing act. Us, Mr. FH would rather over-feed as under-feed. :D Some years you have to meet the basic requirements and nothing more, as mrj pointed out.
No one likes to see their cows walking and bawling because they are unhappy; but no one likes to sell their cows only to have to buy back cattle in ensuing years either. A man's gotta do what a mans gotta do. Of course you can't starve a profit out of a cow; but that's not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about is meeting their basic requirements.

Protein has been oversold for years. Feed stores make money selling protein and they are good at it.

We have found that 10% protein grass hay is enough for a range cow with no other protein supplement as long as they get enough of it.( Please understand, that is when feeding hay; cattle grazing grass in the winter need protein supplement.) The amount of TDN is important as well. The more north you get, the more important it becomes.

One needs to watch the ADF of the hay too, as that shows how digestible the hay is. I've seen poor hay being fed to cows that wasn't very digestible, so some was left on the ground. The rancher goes out to feed the next day and sees all the hay left over. His thought was the cows didn't consume all of the hay because they were being overfed, so he cuts them back on the hay. Over time the cows get thinner and thinner. That used to happen a more than it does now~ I think because of the tools that are available so that one knows more about the hay they are feeding. Ranchers that are interested have access to learning as much as they want to know.

The best bang for your buck is to GET YOUR FEED TESTED. You can't manage what you can't measure. A feed analysis measures what is in your feedstuffs.

Back to a the bulls. I've seen bulls at the different bull shows that a nutritionist had figured the ration for--those bulls were so dirty behind that
you knew something was wrong. Whether the bulls had been stepped up on ration too fast or the feed was too rich--who knows? Their behinds should
not be dirty when the ration is right for them to digest properly
Dirty behinds mean acidosis. Acidosis means the rumen isn't able to work properly and digestion is hampered. Regardless of who or what, we must remember we aren't feeding cattle, we are feeding the rumen.


Many (most) cattlemen can tell through experience, how their cows are doing on what they are being fed. Only problem with that is it takes 80 lbs to change a condition score on a cow. When fed improperly, they will lose 80 lbs. faster than they can put it back on during the winter. When you feed them every day, see them every day they can go downhill before your realize what you are doing isn't working. .(Not always, but sometimes.) When you know the requirements of a cow and know what is in your hay, you have a good opportunity to head off that weight loss. A real good practice is to get them into a body score of 6 going into the winter. Then losing 80# isn't a huge deal.

Starting at a 6 body score, a cow can lose one body score (80#) and still come into calving in a body score of 5, which is fine. Research shows if you start out with a body score of 5 and lose one body score by calving time,(drops to a 4) then that isn't a good thing. Even colostrum quality goes down. Starting the winter with a body score of 5 or less means bred cattle need to GAIN weight during the winter to be a 5 at calving. I don't know about where you live, but here it's very expensive to try to get cattle to gain weight during the winter. Your feed costs will soar. A cow won't gain weight easily on hay alone until she is turned out on grass in the spring. That's in our area...

This has been a good topic. Great discussion going on here, IMO.
------------------------------
Denny said:

'Vigortone will whip up a ration for you if you give them your feed anallisis using your feed on hand and adding to it where needed.'

That's a correct statement. Denny. Thanks for bringing it up. I like the 'using your feed on hand part' especially well. :D
Not only will they run rations at no cost to you, they will take some grass and hay samples for customers free of charge as well. I am sure other companies offer that service, too. Not all, but some.
 
A nutritionist job is to build a program that utilizes feed availble at a reasonable cost with specific expectations in mind. I don't disagree that at times you can meet a cows requirements with only one source of supplement, I would speculate that it is not always the most efficient way to meet their requirements. It is not always simple, although most times it is. I have had to explain and differentiate between TDN and Energy. People often mistake them as the same thing. I would disagree that protein is over sold, due to the fact that the repercussion of under feeding it can brake an operation and directly affect every single aspect of a cow herd. I think that fat is probably the most over looked resource out there. People will balance a ration and think they are meeting requirements, meanwhile cattle are losing condition. I have found that most of the time it is weather, mostly temperature related. People increase consumption to try to remedy when lots of time if they feed a product that is high in fat it will remedy the problem. Not a cure all, but inexpensive way to maintain condition on a cow compared to trying to feed enough hay to remedy the problem. Point being that there are lots of products out there that do a good job. You have to analyze each one and decide what your limitations are, including your ability to feed a product, labor, finances and desired results. If you are not able to do so, a good independent nutritionist would be worth the money.
I have no idea what your feed availability is FH. I am 100% sure that I can not feed prairie hay exclusively and meet a cow requirements more efficiently or economically than I can by correctly supplementing her. I also feel like alfalfa is highly overated, while being high in protein it has very little other nutrient value that does me much good, nor does it seem all that cost effective to me. I feel sometimes people tend to look at cost/ton and forget to look at overall effectiveness and cost/day. More often than not I have found that a good cake product at $100/ton more than alfalfa is not only less expensive to feed but does a far better job of meeting requirements.
 
A good nutritionist should be invaluable but if you live in the US you have access to some of the best free of charge - - - go to your extension agent and work with them thru your University ( Purdue here in Indiana )

Purdue offers many 3 day short courses that are either free or very reasonable as well as the direct on your farm info.
 
Faster horses said:
There is a wealth of knowledge out there that is available to anyone for free.

You can keep it simple or you can make it just as complicated as you want.

Ours is/was a pretty simple operation. We never fed bulls that were being offered for sale at some point, so my comments are not directed to the bull producer. We only fed hay and mineral to cows and heifers. Even doing just that we had our hay tested, knew what a cows requirements were and how that changed with temperature. Since our operation was fairly small as far as Se Montana ranches go, we bought a hay processor with a scale underneath so we knew exactly how much hay we were feeding per head per day.The add-on price of the scale was $2500. We figured we could pay for the scale by saving 50 ton of hay valued at $50/ton over the life of the machine. It well exceeded that.

We ran our 'ration' ourselves (based on analysis of hay and requirements of cows) and got by excellent. A rancher can't afford to under-feed and they can't afford to over-feed. It's a balancing act. Us, Mr. FH would rather over-feed as under-feed. :D Some years you have to meet the basic requirements and nothing more, as mrj pointed out.
No one likes to see their cows walking and bawling because they are unhappy; but no one likes to sell their cows only to have to buy back cattle in ensuing years either. A man's gotta do what a mans gotta do. Of course you can't starve a profit out of a cow; but that's not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about is meeting their basic requirements.

Protein has been oversold for years. Feed stores make money selling protein and they are good at it.

We have found that 10% protein grass hay is enough for a range cow with no other protein supplement as long as they get enough of it.( Please understand, that is when feeding hay; cattle grazing grass in the winter need protein supplement.) The amount of TDN is important as well. The more north you get, the more important it becomes.

One needs to watch the ADF of the hay too, as that shows how digestible the hay is. I've seen poor hay being fed to cows that wasn't very digestible, so some was left on the ground. The rancher goes out to feed the next day and sees all the hay left over. His thought was the cows didn't consume all of the hay because they were being overfed, so he cuts them back on the hay. Over time the cows get thinner and thinner. That used to happen a more than it does now~ I think because of the tools that are available so that one knows more about the hay they are feeding. Ranchers that are interested have access to learning as much as they want to know.

The best bang for your buck is to GET YOUR FEED TESTED. You can't manage what you can't measure. A feed analysis measures what is in your feedstuffs.

Back to a the bulls. I've seen bulls at the different bull shows that a nutritionist had figured the ration for--those bulls were so dirty behind that
you knew something was wrong. Whether the bulls had been stepped up on ration too fast or the feed was too rich--who knows? Their behinds should
not be dirty when the ration is right for them to digest properly
Dirty behinds mean acidosis. Acidosis means the rumen isn't able to work properly and digestion is hampered. Regardless of who or what, we must remember we aren't feeding cattle, we are feeding the rumen.


Many (most) cattlemen can tell through experience, how their cows are doing on what they are being fed. Only problem with that is it takes 80 lbs to change a condition score on a cow. When fed improperly, they will lose 80 lbs. faster than they can put it back on during the winter. When you feed them every day, see them every day they can go downhill before your realize what you are doing isn't working. .(Not always, but sometimes.) When you know the requirements of a cow and know what is in your hay, you have a good opportunity to head off that weight loss. A real good practice is to get them into a body score of 6 going into the winter. Then losing 80# isn't a huge deal.

Starting at a 6 body score, a cow can lose one body score (80#) and still come into calving in a body score of 5, which is fine. Research shows if you start out with a body score of 5 and lose one body score by calving time,(drops to a 4) then that isn't a good thing. Even colostrum quality goes down. Starting the winter with a body score of 5 or less means bred cattle need to GAIN weight during the winter to be a 5 at calving. I don't know about where you live, but here it's very expensive to try to get cattle to gain weight during the winter. Your feed costs will soar. A cow won't gain weight easily on hay alone until she is turned out on grass in the spring. That's in our area...

This has been a good topic. Great discussion going on here, IMO.
------------------------------
Denny said:

'Vigortone will whip up a ration for you if you give them your feed anallisis using your feed on hand and adding to it where needed.'

That's a correct statement. Denny. Thanks for bringing it up. I like the 'using your feed on hand part' especially well. :D
Not only will they run rations at no cost to you, they will take some grass and hay samples for customers free of charge as well. I am sure other companies offer that service, too. Not all, but some.
Click to expand...

LOOMIX will do it gratis, as well. Excellent post, FH!

Let's get real for a minute, folks. Most any feed company is going to have a competing product for any product any other feed company has. In most cases, a 20% AN cube or tub is a 20% AN cube or tub. What you need to look for is ADDED VALUE. What about the vitamin and trace mineral package? Can this product be delivered to the cows, or my home place, or do I have to go into town and pick it up? Do I need to buy extra feeding equipment (which costs more money, will wear out, or require some type of on site storage), to use this product? K State has done extensive research in this area, and has breakdowns of about any additional cost you may incur.

I tell people my advice is worth just what it costs them, but over the years I have been instrumental in some amazing turn arounds in conception rates, hay savings, etc. The folks I helped didn't always buy my product, but over the years most of them do anymore.

In my experience, the nutritionists I have run across have always been in someone's back pocket, and in some cases, have stepped on dollars to pick up dimes, because they refused to look at anything new or different.
 
flyingS said:
More often than not I have found that a good cake product at $100/ton more than alfalfa is not only less expensive to feed but does a far better job of meeting requirements.
Click to expand...

The cheapest cubes I could get my hands on are running $375/ton, bulk, wholesale, picked up at the mill. NO dealer margin, freight, fuel surcharge, or any other costs (bulk bin, pickup feeder, gas, and time) figured in. Generally, it takes 2# of cubes to equal what's in a pound of LOOMIX. I charge $600/ton for my product, delivered and fed (available 24/7, unlike cubes).

Alfalfa in this country is running around $250/ton. I'm not going to say that you couldn't get some kind of cubes for $350/ton....but I don't know if I'd want to feed them, let alone God knows what the ingredients might be. alfalfa might look cheap once a pencil was put to it. IMHO.
 
loomixguy said:
flyingS said:
More often than not I have found that a good cake product at $100/ton more than alfalfa is not only less expensive to feed but does a far better job of meeting requirements.
Click to expand...

The cheapest cubes I could get my hands on are running $375/ton, bulk, wholesale, picked up at the mill. NO dealer margin, freight, fuel surcharge, or any other costs (bulk bin, pickup feeder, gas, and time) figured in. Generally, it takes 2# of cubes to equal what's in a pound of LOOMIX. I charge $600/ton for my product, delivered and fed (available 24/7, unlike cubes).

Alfalfa in this country is running around $250/ton. I'm not going to say that you couldn't get some kind of cubes for $350/ton....but I don't know if I'd want to feed them, let alone God knows what the ingredients might be. alfalfa might look cheap once a pencil was put to it. IMHO.
Click to expand...

The problem I have with alfalfa is unless you grind and mix everything together that after a person feeds a bale of it the next day or two of what ever I am feeding just dons't look near as good to them and the cows don't like it as well and seem to be always waiting for you to bring another alfalfa bale every time they see the pickup.

We are going to use loomix this fall and winter I think. I'm always trying something different and suposably better, so we will see.

I like your earlier post FH. I to believe that you at least need to know what you have in your bales, as far as protein and such, so you at least have an idea what's happening.
 
Loomix do you chop ice, gather calves to the bunk, doctor and check cows while you are delivering it. How often do you have to refill your tanks. I would hope that most people at least check there cows and water a couple of times a week at a minimum. I have fed cake to mature cows once a week and gotten by extremely well. It may have cost me a little more in fuel because of the added weight, I use a siren to call the cows and am able to get a good look at them so it saved time over trying to drive through them. I don't by the savings bull that salesmen fill you with about fuel savings and time. I would check my cattle, water, etc. at least a couple times a week and chop ice as needed everyday. I would be out in my cows anyway. I am not partial to any particular feed source as long as it makes financial sense. I no you can get liquid feed somewhere in our area but have no idea where. What is the fat content in Loomix. Does that 600/ton include a mineral package.
 
Flying S, you feed cake only once every 7 days and feel it does them some good? :shock:

How much cake do you feed them every 7 days? Where did you come up with feeding protein once a week opposed to at least every third day? Are you feeding them anything else, or are these cattle strictly on grass in the winter? I know protein doesn't need fed on a daily basis, but I didn't know you could go as long as 7 days and have it be effective as far as meeting their daily protein requirement.

Please enlighten me...
 
Protein requirements obviously change with stages of gestation, 90 days before calving being the most crucial time to meet requirements. When you start to feed your protein your supplement requirement hopefully won't be as high depending on what other feed source they have. Feeding a mature set of cows once a week is adequate if you can carry enough cake in one load. People may argue that point, it is proven and performance is above par. The particular ranch where I started feeding this way runs over 12,000 mother cows and the feeding practices are fairly consistent company wide. In different classes of cattle you have to use some common sense. We still only fed calves and bred hfrs every other day. Of course you have to have the calves on feed for awhile before you can switch to every other day and they were fence line weaned and turned out on meadows. FH, I am surprised that you don't feel like feeding protein once a week is adequate if you feel like they can meet their requirements with hay. These cows were on range and were recieving .3 of a lb of protein a day or 1lb of a 32% cube. The last year we ran mature cows there they weighed right at 1285 at pregging. The steer calves weighed right at 565 lbs the 19th of Nov and had been weaned approximately 60 days. The avg calving date was Apr 16th or there abouts. The cows bred up at 96% and we weaned right at 97.5% of the total calves born. There is an accurate record system to back those numbers up, not something I just pulled out of a hat.
 
flyingS said:
Protein requirements obviously change with stages of gestation, 90 days before calving being the most crucial time to meet requirements. When you start to feed your protein your supplement requirement hopefully won't be as high depending on what other feed source they have. Feeding a mature set of cows once a week is adequate if you can carry enough cake in one load. People may argue that point, it is proven and performance is above par. The particular ranch where I started feeding this way runs over 12,000 mother cows and the feeding practices are fairly consistent company wide. In different classes of cattle you have to use some common sense. We still only fed calves and bred hfrs every other day. Of course you have to have the calves on feed for awhile before you can switch to every other day and they were fence line weaned and turned out on meadows. FH, I am surprised that you don't feel like feeding protein once a week is adequate if you feel like they can meet their requirements with hay. These cows were on range and were recieving .3 of a lb of protein a day or 1lb of a 32% cube. The last year we ran mature cows there they weighed right at 1285 at pregging. The steer calves weighed right at 565 lbs the 19th of Nov and had been weaned approximately 60 days. The avg calving date was Apr 16th or there abouts. The cows bred up at 96% and we weaned right at 97.5% of the total calves born. There is an accurate record system to back those numbers up, not something I just pulled out of a hat.
Click to expand...

Sure, requirements do change with different stages of gestation.

If you are only feeding .3# of protein a day, my next question is why feed them protein at all? Where are you getting the other 1.2# of crude protein that is their requirement in the first or second trimester?

Your 32% protein cube has to have urea in it to get the protein that high, correct? What I have learned is you have to take out the urea that they can't utilize when figuring pounds of protein.

Your stats on this set of cows are impressive. I just can't grasp that you can feed that little amount and do much for the cows. The rest of their ration (grass, it sounds like) must be doing a lot for them. Did you say they were on meadows?

I'm not trying to be difficult here...just trying to grasp the concept. So tell me what your cows are getting out of .3# of protein/day fed every 7 days. It just looks to me like the cows would do as well without it. .3 of protein isn't very much when the requirement is 1.5# per hd/per day. They must be on some real good winter feed is what I'm trying to say.
What is that cake costing by the ton?

Here is how the hay meets their requirements: 10% protein hay, take out 10% moisture. Feed 15# of hay AS FED=13.5 Dry Matter. At 10% protein
cows would get 1.35# of protein. That is not counting any grazing they would do, but at 15# as fed, they would need to have grass available to graze. You could feed this every other day in early gestation.
$60 ton hay would cost you 45 cents per head per day. And with 15# of
hay you also get 13.5 # of dry matter. (Dry matter is also a requirement.) If the hay was 55% TDN, you would also get 7.42# of Energy.

One of our friends limit fed alfalfa hay to his cows this winter (through most of the winter) for the first time and mostly because he was a bit short of hay. I'm going to ask him how much alfalfa hay he fed and what it cost him. He used alfalfa hay as a supplement. This is a rancher who used to feed cake and now supplements with his own alfalfa. He a really good stockman and runs a tight ship. He switched because he felt it was more low cost to feed what he raised instead of purchasing outside feed.

Again, good topic. I like learning and I love helping people.
 
flyingS said:
Loomix do you chop ice, gather calves to the bunk, doctor and check cows while you are delivering it. How often do you have to refill your tanks. I would hope that most people at least check there cows and water a couple of times a week at a minimum. I have fed cake to mature cows once a week and gotten by extremely well. It may have cost me a little more in fuel because of the added weight, I use a siren to call the cows and am able to get a good look at them so it saved time over trying to drive through them. I don't by the savings bull that salesmen fill you with about fuel savings and time. I would check my cattle, water, etc. at least a couple times a week and chop ice as needed everyday. I would be out in my cows anyway. I am not partial to any particular feed source as long as it makes financial sense. I no you can get liquid feed somewhere in our area but have no idea where. What is the fat content in Loomix. Does that 600/ton include a mineral package.
Click to expand...

I am not, repeat NOT, anybody's hired man.

That being said, if there's ice needs chopped, I chop it. I fix fence, repair gates, get in stock that is out, fight fires, put out salt at the customer's request, pull stuck vehicles free, give rides to people whose vehicles are broken down, and even got Jig's son out of a tight he got into with a riding lawn mower once. I report dead critters or anything else I see that I think should be reported. I check my troughs every week to 10 days, depending on the circumstances. I don't just do this for 1 or 2 customers, I do it for them ALL, 6-10 or more different customers every day in the fall, winter, and spring. I'm not afraid to turn in idiots to the brand inspector for starving their cows. Everyone at the Sheriff's office knows me by my first name when I call them up to report something. For every trough I service, I write a note as to weather, grass condition, or anything unusual I notice.

Right now I am using Loomix HF Complete. 12% fat, 20% protein, with Availa-4, a complete vitamin and chelated trace mineral package, Rumenext, and IGR. 29 cents/pound, delivered and fed (trough provided for free), available 24/7.

If you don't figure your fuel, time, and additional equipment cost into any equation you are looking at, you are only fooling yourself. I've been doing this for a long time. That's why I have a hard time swallowing the story of how wonderful and economical cubes are in an operation.
 
Loomix, my point is at some point an operation has to check their cows. If I were to charge myself for everytime I multi-task, I would just stay in the house. I am not saying you don't have a good product. Just making the point that you have to think a sales pitch through, I don't buy fuel and time savings unless you think you have to cake everyday. If a person thinks you have to cake everyday, my guess is it would be pretty tough to visit with them about making any kind of change in their operation.
FH, the cows were on range, figured at a conservative 6%, tested with esophageal cows. If you figure they east 2.5% of their body weight @ 1285 lbs that is just over 32 lbs of range. They say a DDG product will replace 2 lbs of range for every lb fed so cut that back to 30lbs, take out 10% for moisture so 27lbs as fed for 1.62 lbs of protein. The TDN would be similar to what your hay is at 52% for 14 lbs of Total Digestable Nutrients, not energy. Now add the cake to the equation you get .3 lbs of protein to total 1.9 lbs of protein. The TDN, if I remember right was somewhere in the 80s say 84, for .8 of a lb of TDN, totaling 14.8 lbs of TDN. The cube was also a minimum of 7% fat, true energy, so they were getting .7 lbs of what I call energy. The cake was enough protein to keep the bugs in the rumen active and make the cow efficient grazers. The hay fed was extremely limited, mainly only when extreme weather hit and always lots of hay ahead of time to fill the rumen. Hay would be increased shortly before calving. Most of the program was based on a grazing program not a feeding program, realizing that their are times that you have to supplement your stock. The cows are highly efficient grazers and fairly productive. It is not as simple as all of that probably but that gives you the run down. You never had to worry about the cows waiting for you at the gate. We had weighed 10% of the hay so we had an idea what the bales weighed. The cows were in a BC score 4.8 to 5 on avg, they only consumed about 650 to 700 lbs of hay/hd/yr. I can't remeber what the cost of the cake was it has been several yrs so prices have changed quite a little. The cake did not have urea in it. I don't know if you can get it any more, ADM built it specifically for the ranch, I don't know if it was available to anyone else until they got it to cube better.
 
flyingS said:
Loomix, my point is at some point an operation has to check their cows. If I were to charge myself for everytime I multi-task, I would just stay in the house. I am not saying you don't have a good product. Just making the point that you have to think a sales pitch through, I don't buy fuel and time savings unless you think you have to cake everyday. If a person thinks you have to cake everyday, my guess is it would be pretty tough to visit with them about making any kind of change in their operation.
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What I posted was not a sales pitch. I agree, the cows need checked, but I know for a fact that there are a LOT of cows in the country who are checked way less than they ought to be, or the owners claim they are. What I am is another set of eyes, and probably noticing things that might not need to be noticed, but I have no problem letting the owners know what I saw, even if it's more of a CYA thing.

I don't feed cows, I feed the bugs in the rumens of cows. Added value is my stock in trade.
 
Loomix you are taking offense to a general statement not a personal attack. It sounds like you try to provide the best quality of service you possibly can. You have obviously but some thought into your product and run numbers yourself instead of listening to a reps speech and repeating it to your customers. Keep up the good work
 

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