Cattle stopped gaining weight!!

[DanMan]

Hello,

So I have 15 bulls (bos indicus) that I am trying to fatten. I bought 7 in mid-December 2015 and the remaining 8 around 2 week of February 2016.

They are being fed green fodder (trifolium alexandrinum) with a DM content of about 12% (very surprising it is that low, however I tested using microwave drying method) and grain corn with a DM content of about 88%.

The fodder is around 55-60 lbs per day per head with DM of around 7 lbs per day per head.
The grain corn is around 4.4 lbs per day per head with DM of around 3.8 lbs per day per head.
They are fed about 3 times per day and have access to clean water all the time.

Day 0. I did the first weighing on 25/2/16 with a scale of precision of +-2 lbs. The average weight was around 581 lbs with a range of 482-747 lbs.

Day 14. I did the second weighing on 10/3/16. The average weight was around 614 lbs with a range of 513-820 lbs. Over a period of 14 days, the best performing bull gained at 5.2 lbs per day (sounds too good to be true). 12 out of the 15 bulls had a ADG of above 2lbs, while 3 had bad ADG at 1 and under 1 lbs. On the whole the bulls average ADG was 2.35 lbs which seemed great to me.

I thought maybe those 3 had worms so I dewormed all the bulls.

Day 33. At the third weighing on 3/29/16 I got very surprising and disappointing results. The average ADG from Day 14 to Day 33 was only 0.42 lbs. The average weight had climbed from 614 to only 622 lbs in 19 full days! I was shocked but I thought maybe it was because the animals had emptied their stomachs or something.

Day 41. At the fourth weighing yesterday on 4/6/16, I was disappointed once again. The average ADG from Day 33 to Day 41 was only 0.92 lbs. Some bulls had lost around 25 lbs from Day 33 to Day 41, while some had gained about the same. The white bull that had an ADG of 5.2 from Day 0 to Day 14 had in fact dropped about 10 pounds in weight from Day 14 to Day 41. This was very perplexing and disappointing.

I am attaching some pictures. If anyone has any explanation or idea please let me know asap!

 

[dun]

When you get done with the figuring, what is the weight and protein % of the feed per pound of calf. To my figuring, they need around 2% to 2.5% of their body weight per day of 13-16% protein feed.

 

[skyhightree1]

I cant answer the question about the gain but I bet you don't ever have any escapees out of those walls

 

[bball]

What's the water supply situation? Plentiful, clean water available? Got to have adequate water to convert and metabolize. Simple, basics; start at square one. How's their 'flops' look? Do they clean up all the feed at each feeding or leaving some? With corn, if you push them too hard, sometimes they will go off feed.

ETA: I saw where you said water available. Is water 'good'? Parasite free? Suitable water.

 

[bball]

One additional thought:salt and mineral readily availble?

 

[Jessica06]

My first thought is that they are getting way too much to eat, and if that fodder is as green as I "think" it is, it is probably passing right through them. When our grass is lush, the cattle look pretty awful. Gaining any significant weight is going to be out of the question. If it starts getting dry, like now, they start looking really good.

 

[Son of Butch]

Protein stall out.
We had a group of 1000 lb holstein steers stall out on us once. Nutritionist thought maybe the calcium was too low.
Tested the ration delivered to the bunk and turned out the protein was lower than we calculated causing them to stall.
Do you have access to a protein supplement that could be mixed with the grain/corn?

 

[DanMan]

When you get done with the figuring, what is the weight and protein % of the feed per pound of calf. To my figuring, they need around 2% to 2.5% of their body weight per day of 13-16% protein feed.

Doing some quick calculations. Assumptions:

* They actually do get 10 bags of 90 lbs green fodder per day as the workers say. I visit site only once a week or so, but am in phone contact.

* My Green fodder has about the same protein content as the information listed online

Feed:

Online resources say Berseem green fodder has DM of 20-25% and CP (crude protein) of 20% of the DM. Corn has CP of 8-9% of the DM. My Berseem definitely does not have DM of 20-25%, but rather is close to 12%.

Berseem (Trifolium Alexandrinum) - 55-60 lbs per day - 12 % DM - about 6.8 lbs DM - CP is 1.36 lbs
Corn - 4.4 lbs per day - 88% DM - about 3.9 lbs DM - CP is 0.33 lbs

Total feed DM is 10.7 lbs per day per bull. Total CP is 1.69 lbs which is about 15.8%.

Assuming average bull weight is 620 lbs, 2.0-2.5% of bodyweight equals DM of 12.4-15.5 lbs.
However since corn is about 1.5 as energy dense as green fodder, it might make up for the 10.7 lbs, but I do not know since they gaining has stopped.

I cant answer the question about the gain but I bet you don't ever have any escapees out of those walls

Haha not unless they learn how to fly :cowboy:

What's the water supply situation? Plentiful, clean water available? Got to have adequate water to convert and metabolize. Simple, basics; start at square one. How's their 'flops' look? Do they clean up all the feed at each feeding or leaving some? With corn, if you push them too hard, sometimes they will go off feed.

ETA: I saw where you said water available. Is water 'good'? Parasite free? Suitable water.

Yes I believe the water is good. It is underground water from a bore-well. Trough is cleaned once or twice a day and refilled.

One additional thought:salt and mineral readily availble?

They were started rock salt blocks about 2-3 weeks ago. No minerals though.

My first thought is that they are getting way too much to eat, and if that fodder is as green as I "think" it is, it is probably passing right through them. When our grass is lush, the cattle look pretty awful. Gaining any significant weight is going to be out of the question. If it starts getting dry, like now, they start looking really good.

Their faeces are a bit watery, but that is probably expected if the fodder is 88% water lol. I guess I will switch to corn silage next time. The DM on this fodder was horrendous. However they did gain huge numbers of this same fodder and corn between the first and second measurement.

Protein stall out.
We had a group of 1000 lb holstein steers stall out on us once. Nutritionist thought maybe the calcium was too low.
Tested the ration delivered to the bunk and turned out the protein was lower than we calculated causing them to stall.
Do you have access to a protein supplement that could be mixed with the grain/corn?

If online resources are to be believed the CP of the feed is 15.7%. But this might not be actually true. I have heard of people using urea as a cheap protein source.



Also I just build a shade for them yesterday. They were exposed to the sun before this and 3-4 days in the past week were hot. Can this be the cause? However I do not believe there were any significant hot days between Day 14 and Day 33, and even during that period their gains were very slow.

 

[bball]

Brahman cattle are pretty tolerant of heat; wouldnt think heat stress, but possibly someone more familiar with them knows best.

I would get a quality loose mineral out there for them and i would also switch from salt blocks to loose salt. I think there are few studies that demonstrated the inefficacy of salt blocks vs. loose salt in cattle. They would have to spend an inordinate amount of time at blocks licking vs. What they get from loose.

For my own piece of mind, i might test a water sample for evaluation/contamination.

 

[BK9954]

MINERALS ARE A MUST!! I consider them as important as protien. They impact weight gain and over all health. I have seen it.

 

[jerry27150]

I would kick the corn up to 10 lbs, it will give more energy they need & take up some of the water. when I milked holteins, I would feed nothing but ground corn when I turned them on spring grass