TheBullLady":3gxfcm7i said:
Do you usually just pull your show animals out of pasture before a show? You don't put them on feed ahead of time?
Bull lady, we generally try not to pour the feed into our show team. Our herd as a whole is composed of pretty easy doing cattle, so they are generally in pretty good nick. We have been in drought for the last six years, so the herd as a whole gets hay and silage, but no grain. With animals that are already halterbroken (that is, were shown previously) like these cows, we usually leave them in the paddock with the rest of the herd and they just get hay. A couple of weeks before the show we will pen them up to get the green feed out of them. They get oaten hay ad lib, plus a bucket of oaten chaff and a scoop of horse mix to improve their hair.
The young ones that are being broken in tend to get a little more feed, because they are being worked with every day. They get a bucket of oaten chaff, a scoop of horse mix for their hair and a scoop of 15% heifer developer pellets. But once they are broken in it is back to the main herd.
The bulls we put on a little feed morning and night, but we are very careful not to stuff them, because IMHO that is the quickest way to ruin a good bull. Depending on the individual bull and his growth patterns, they will get oaten hay, oaten chaff (lots of it), heifer developer pellets, horse mix and a little barley.
For a one day show, such as the one these cows went to, we generally pull as many halter-broke animals out of the paddock as we can, to support the show.
So, hopefully I answered that question, in a round-about, long winded sort of way!