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Guys feeding liquid feed

B

BlackCattleRancher

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Joined
Nov 5, 2007
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156
Been feeding distillers syrup in lick tanks and the cows are averaging almost 4 gal/day. I can't get them to slow down. WOuld like them consuming 1 gal/day. I've tried a 50 lb. bag of salt in on a fill and they still suck it down fast. Any ideas what I could add to "bitter" it up and slow down their intake without totally turning them off to it? The syrup is pretty much identical to Mix 30 minus the mineral pack. I know this because the trucker who hauls it, also hauls for mix 30 and he stated that all they do is add a mineral pack and distribute it. Any ideas?
 
I feed the MIX 30 and I feed it year round ....mine started out licking it but never over a 1/2 gallon a day for about 3 weeks but then slowed down and have never increased it much since

Mine are down to a pint a day unless it gets real cold....I wish I could help with the problem but only Mix 30 available here
 
my neighbor feeds that stuff , in cold weather his cows look like carmel apples , their hair & ears are all covered with it .He takes plastic barrels splits them so they sit on the ground flat & hold about 20 gallons each & fills them & loads them on a trailor everyday & that limits feed . But man thats alot of laybor . If you did that with a big bunch of cows they would kill you . It gets to cold here to put syrup in a lick tub .
 
Something is obviously wrong. Could be diet, could be they are depleted of copper or some other trace mineral or vitamin, could be boredom, or about any thing else imagineable.

What does this stuff weigh per gallon? LOOMIX weighs 10.8 pounds/gallon, so eating 4 gallons of LOOMIX/day is practically impossible. I have had cattle eat 10 pounds/day of LOOMIX, but for only a day. Found out the next day they had had no mineral for the prior 6 months....put out a bag of mineral and the consumption dropped to 6 pounds the next day, put out another 50 pounds of mineral and it dropped to 2 pounds the next day, and from there it was easy to regulate them.

First...have all your feed tested, and test your water as well. Then, have somebody who knows what they are doing run some rations for you using the results of your feed test. I would personally shut them off from the liquid and just put out some damn good mineral for them until you have a handle on this. The mineral consumption may tell you what you need to know.

Is there a chance they could be using this as an alternative to water??? I have had cows sucking down 4 pounds/day of pure bitter LOOMIX because the producer didn't know his electric waterer as shorted out and every time they went to drink they got the sh*t shocked out of them.

Time spent observing them may give you your answer as to what the problem is.
 
I don't know anything about syrup or liquid feed. I do know my cattle on dormant native winter pasture have been nuts for salt and mineral all winter. I agree with Loomix Guy. Make some good mineral available to them first and go from there.

I just put 300 lbs of loose mineral out to 150 cows and it was gone in 4 days. The cows have had plenty of access to TM salt and Ranch Hand mineral tubs all winter. Vigortone is my first choice of mineral, but it was out of stock when I was in town so I ended up with Payback. :oops:

I think the gals would have inhaled whatever I brought home. It's just that time of year when low quality forage is lacking and salt and mineral consumption is at it's highest.
 
I feed wet distillers to a group of yearlings and they are the same way they would drink it all in one setting if I let them what I did is I got some 275 gallon totes that they pump off the truck into and then I took a 16 inch pipe and cut the top half out and plugged the ends and then just drain the totes into the pipe till it is full. This has been the best way that I have found so far but I am like you BAR I am open to any suggestions one how to feed this stuff. I am going to a semiar tomorrow to hear the pros and cons to distillers grain I will let you know what I fine out.
 
70% moisture, 10% FAT and 28% protein on DM basis, the stuff is rocket fuel if I can control the consumption, free choice mineral available all the time, I think it is a 20% salt mix the coop makes, I know not the highest quality, free choice mature rye hay plenty of fresh clean waterer from frost-free waterers with no electricity around
 
Co-op mineral????? :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :roll:

For Gawd's sake, try ANY other mineral! PLEASE!!

There HAS to be a problem for them to be eating that much. Test the feed and water and have some rations run. Something is terribly out of whack. I've been in the liquid feed business for 15 years, and a scenario like yours has a reason. You just gotta go find it. Any idea how much of the rye hay they are eating on a daily basis? It can't be much if they are eating close to 40 pounds of liquid a day.

I had a guy who is no longer a customer have a fit at me when his calves wouldn't eat a brome alfalfa mix hay, but they would gobble LOOMIX like there was no tomorrow. After looking the bales over pretty well, there was so much mud and dirt and dust and broken baler pickup teeth mixed in with it that it was no wonder they refused to eat it. The hay was barely fit for bedding. I told him if he put out a bale of straw they would clean it up in less than 24 hours. They did. It was still all my fault so I picked up my trough and went on about my way. He's still pi$$ed at me, but that's OK. Neighbors told me later he ground the crap hay with some decent straw and prairie hay at a mix of 6 good to one bad and they cleaned it up.

Bottom line, there is a problem somewhere.
 
But let me ask, it's distillers syrup. If so it is completely different than a liquid protein as loomix and mix 30 would. It would have no minerals or limiter like liquid protein does. Would that not be right.

That said I would do like loomixguy says and get your tests.
 
Larrry said:
VB RANCH said:
may be your problem is because it aint cow feed
Click to expand...

What is "cow feed"
Click to expand...

•grass - herbaceous vegetation upon which animals graze



•hay - grass, alfalfa, or clover cut and dried for fodder

but its like my daddy allways told me opinions are like A$$ Holes everybody got one
 
Enough......BCR has a problem, and I'd like to help him fix it or find a solution. Petty insults and jr. high sparring won't help solve the problem. Pretty common knowlege these days that a wide variety of by products, ingredients, and alternative feedstuffs are being fed in this industry, some with great success.

Maybe it ain't what Grand Dad or Great Grand Dad fed, but then Great Grand Dad probably didn't own a vehicle with air conditioning and a window sticker that read $30,000 plus, either.

Let's keep this one civil, guys...please?
 
I really thought it was going to be an interesting discussion as to how different people look at feeding cattle. i actually have a tendency to agree that in the normal sense cow feed is grass. But in the days of mans influence in cattle we have changed cattle so that cow feed in the non traditional sense is needed. I hope I didn't offend anyone.

I still think loomixguy is right that I would check all things. But they might want to scarf down the distillers syrup like cattle would eat to much grain if given the opportunity. I was stating and actually asking a question "that loomix and mix30 are two feeds that have limiters in them so they don't drink it where syrup won't have a limiter"?
 
loomixguy said:
Co-op mineral????? :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :roll:

For Gawd's sake, try ANY other mineral! PLEASE!!

There HAS to be a problem for them to be eating that much. Test the feed and water and have some rations run. Something is terribly out of whack. I've been in the liquid feed business for 15 years, and a scenario like yours has a reason. You just gotta go find it. Any idea how much of the rye hay they are eating on a daily basis? It can't be much if they are eating close to 40 pounds of liquid a day.

I had a guy who is no longer a customer have a fit at me when his calves wouldn't eat a brome alfalfa mix hay, but they would gobble LOOMIX like there was no tomorrow. After looking the bales over pretty well, there was so much mud and dirt and dust and broken baler pickup teeth mixed in with it that it was no wonder they refused to eat it. The hay was barely fit for bedding. I told him if he put out a bale of straw they would clean it up in less than 24 hours. They did. It was still all my fault so I picked up my trough and went on about my way. He's still pi$$ed at me, but that's OK. Neighbors told me later he ground the crap hay with some decent straw and prairie hay at a mix of 6 good to one bad and they cleaned it up.

Bottom line, there is a problem somewhere.
Click to expand...

Figured up they are eating about 35lbs./day rye hay free choice. I have only been giving them access a few days a week to the syrup to control consumption. A couple of guys have recommended just giving them all they want for a couple of weeks and they should stabalize their intake.
 
The thing with LOOMIX is that there is a bitter product and a sweet product. To discourage consumption more bitter is added to the blend, and, if intake needs encouraged, then more sweet is added. I tell folks that it's Chinese food for cows. I have run more sweet blends this winter than ever before, because some of my larger customers are using turnips along with corn/milo stalks for fall and winter grazing.

The rule of thumb is that when your blend on stalks gets close to or at 100% bitter, it's time to move the cows to fresh grazing, as they have pretty well gotten all the goody there is to get.

I simply can't get my head around the fact that BCR's cattle are eating 40 or so pounds/head/day of this syrup and being able to eat anything else. The rye hay being fed has got to be the main culprit, hence running the tests. :???:

Lick wheel troughs will reduce the consumption, but how would the cows find time to do anything else but work on the syrup? Things aren't adding up.
 
BlackCattleRancher said:
loomixguy said:
Co-op mineral????? :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :roll:

For Gawd's sake, try ANY other mineral! PLEASE!!

There HAS to be a problem for them to be eating that much. Test the feed and water and have some rations run. Something is terribly out of whack. I've been in the liquid feed business for 15 years, and a scenario like yours has a reason. You just gotta go find it. Any idea how much of the rye hay they are eating on a daily basis? It can't be much if they are eating close to 40 pounds of liquid a day.

I had a guy who is no longer a customer have a fit at me when his calves wouldn't eat a brome alfalfa mix hay, but they would gobble LOOMIX like there was no tomorrow. After looking the bales over pretty well, there was so much mud and dirt and dust and broken baler pickup teeth mixed in with it that it was no wonder they refused to eat it. The hay was barely fit for bedding. I told him if he put out a bale of straw they would clean it up in less than 24 hours. They did. It was still all my fault so I picked up my trough and went on about my way. He's still pi$$ed at me, but that's OK. Neighbors told me later he ground the crap hay with some decent straw and prairie hay at a mix of 6 good to one bad and they cleaned it up.

Bottom line, there is a problem somewhere.
Click to expand...

Figured up they are eating about 35lbs./day rye hay free choice. I have only been giving them access a few days a week to the syrup to control consumption. A couple of guys have recommended just giving them all they want for a couple of weeks and they should stabalize their intake.
Click to expand...

I don't see how they can be eating 35 pounds of hay/day AND 40 pounds of syrup/day, too. Their rumen won't hold that much. 75 pounds is a LOT of feed, plus water, too???? They must be using the syrup as a substitute for water.
 

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