Katrina: The white thingy on the toolbox is a backpack sprayer. It holds about 3 gallons. In that picture, I had just used it spray the watermelon patch with round up after the last of the watermelons had been picked. As for cattle bloodlines. Wow, that is tough. I got all kinds. Some EXT, West Wend Rito, Royce 131, Neutron 377, Future Direction, Newsline, New Day, Krugerrand 410H, CH Stacker, SAF Focus of ER and several others. And many of my female lines trace back many generations to local seed stock producers from years ago. This year I am breeding to Objective 3J15, Upward, Net Worth, and heifers to Final Answer.
Faster Horses: Yes, A good mineral is required to raise cattle. I am back using the Right-Now program. I find it a lot eases to keep than Vigortone. If I had a local supplier so that I did not have to buy several tons at a time I would switch to Vigortone. But I buy what I can get local. And it pays to do business at home. I have not had my hay analyzed but it is all I have and those cows are going to eat what I have. I cut my own hay and I know fairly well, what I have after feeding it for years cut from the same land and fertilized well. I can also watch the cows and tell a lot about how good the hay is. Some lesser hay that is say over grown and less feed value will be wasted more and consumed slower. The cows won’t clean up the roll like young cut well stored hay, which they clean up every scrap. On the other hand, if I was buying hay and did not know what went in and watch it being cut I would have it tested.
As for energy need in the southeast: The hardest weather on a cow is 33 deg and raining with a stiff wend. And we have plenty of that type of weather. It freezes at night and mist rain sleet all day. When the weather is like that, my cows eat twice as much hay as they do on those 50 deg days in the sun. We don’t have near the hard winter y’all do but we don’t have the quality forage that y’all can grow either. Yes, energy is the hardest to keep on southern cows but mine seem to be getting enough from “good” hay and what little grubbing of clover and ryegrass they can find.
A poor quality hay will require supplementing all year. Poor hay cost more than good hay even if you pay a little less for it. I try to grow and cut the best hay I can even if I lose some production volume in doing it. I think it pays when feeding your own hay. I better not get started on hay quality, some folks just don't understand that hay is feed.