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Efficient Cattle

Doug Thorson

Well-known member
I sold my F2 black and baldie steers yesterday. I had never had a scale to feed with until this year. I planned on feeding 4lbs distillers and all the hay they could eat.
Hay mixture was 6 bales of hay that was mostly dried cheatgrass, 6 bales of average hay that a cow would eat OK if it was cold and 2 bales of very good hay millett. Distillers came out to 3.76 per day and going off the fact they were only eating 21.8 total pounds per day I thought they would weigh 725.
My jaw hit the floor when the main bunch came in the ring at 829. Overall average was 816. The best part was 92% went in one sort.
 

Doug Thorson

Well-known member
They were weaned 131 days. I didn't weigh any of my commercial calves(balance beam scale) but the neighbors who helped figured them at 570. With weighing the bulls and seeing them in one bunch I would say they would be pretty close.
By the way, only 20% of them were 11 months old.
One other thing that helped is that after locking them up for 2 days with long hay I filled the bunks and turned them out in the big lot. Within 5 minutes every calf was lined up at the bunks eating. The next day they were all eating by the time I shut the gate on my way out.
 

Doug Thorson

Well-known member
They sold OK for the market. With .95 Aug fats but 1.06 Feb fats the market was sluggish on heavy calves and pretty hot on light calves.
8 weight load lots brought .9375 and my package brought .93 so I did pretty well on that. Low 7 weight calves brought the same dollars per head.

Sales come and go but a program lasts. I have spent the last 7-8 years changing from Feb calving and January sales of 8 weight calves to April calving and WAY less feed cost. If they gain 100 pounds too much I can't hardly fault the calves. I just need to cut even more feed cost.
 

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