Feeding oats to bred heifers

[burnt]

Bringing hay in all winter, different qualities, some good, some poor, around 4cents/lb.It's been tough to keep condition on all of the cows, young or older since it was tough to get quality hay put up last summer with very little sunshine.

Someone offered me light oats from a seed cleaning plant for $125/MT (5.5 cents/lb) delivered. So the question is, how many oats can I put in front of them, especially the bred heifers and first calvers?

Are they best ground or can they be fed whole?

 

[gcreekrch]

We were short of hay (too many cows) one year and barley was cheaper than hay. We fed 5 lbs of barley to replace 8-10 lbs of hay all that winter. Cows wintered in better condition than they had before or since. Calves were really strong.
We did have some trouble thinking they were hungry during one cold spell and lost a couple calves when some grazing on jackpine occurred.

They say you don't have to process oats to get they good out of them but I don't like to see grain come out whole. Need a PTO roller mill? Got one you can have cheap if you come to Creech's this weekend.

 

[starvin'dog]

I like to have some light oats/screenings to start my calves. I plunk out a creep feeder full of the stuff and rarely have one over load. Most don't even get loose. Pretty bulky feed, don't think you would hurt them @10 lbs.
Wouldn't bother processing it, if they're screenings they are pretty knocked around already. Unless you want to put it over a magnet.

 

[Faster horses]

The rule of thumb is less than 5# or more than 10# to keep the rumen 'bugs' healthy and able to digest everything as you are mixing starch and forage.

I would think they'd do good on it. We had a customer who tried free choicing oats to his calves and he lost several with entertoxemia. He had given a cheap vaccine so maybe that was the problem, but in feedlots
they give that vaccine every thirty days--and they use a good one like
Vision 7. I'd limit feed them if they were mine.

 

[RSL]

We feed oats quite often and they work really well. Good complete protein and the hull actually prevents some overload. Don't waste the $ processing as it works out cheaper to just feed a bit more to make up for the loss in digestibility.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

To bad you couldn't get some soybean screening in with those oats.

What's your corn worth at home?

 

[burnt]

Feeding them whole would sure make it a lot easier all around - dump them on flat storage and feed them with the loader rather than putting them up in overhead storage, running them through the grinder and then scooping them back into the loader bucket.

But then I am kinda lazy . . .

BMr, I sold my corn shortly after harvest last fall for a fairly significant premium on non-GMO. Only kept a small amount for finishing a few cattle for freezer orders.