easy fleshing cattle

[dun]

dun,
I wish I could do that 365 days a year. My comment was aimed at those who need (or think they need) to feed in a yard. When on pasture ours graze what and when they want, too. I look forward to later in the season when the quality of grass goes down. The cows are cleaner, no squirts.

Even when we bale graze they have no fresh feed in front of them for a while. It forces them to do a better job of cleaning up what they were given, and helps out with the variation in herd BCS scores.

Off subject, but some people feed in a yard or sacrificial area to keep from overgrazing or tearing up a pasture. I think back when dun fed hay he said he liked to feed on rock outcroppings. Those sacrificial area can end up being the best parts of a pasture.
Sometimes it is not the quality of the grass but the high water content.

Yup, if we have to feed hay that's where we do it. Of course we are blessed (cursed) with an over abundance of areas like that.

 

[AudieWyoming]

Thanks for the replies, by what I am reading I need to cull my thinner cows, keep replacements from my fatter cows,and get a bull with a high feed converstion rate. Maybe after many years I can have cows survive on just a hay and pasture diet, am I correct?

c f

You want cows that will thrive on just pasture and hay, not just survive. But, yes, you should get there with the strategy you just outlined.

j

If you weigh the individual calves at weaning, age adjust them, and keep and keep acurate records I think you will find the thinner cows generally wean the most lbs, and most of the time the cow is fat because she is not working hard enough!

 

[fargus]

Thanks for the replies, by what I am reading I need to cull my thinner cows, keep replacements from my fatter cows,and get a bull with a high feed converstion rate. Maybe after many years I can have cows survive on just a hay and pasture diet, am I correct?

c f

You want cows that will thrive on just pasture and hay, not just survive. But, yes, you should get there with the strategy you just outlined.

j

If you weigh the individual calves at weaning, age adjust them, and keep and keep acurate records I think you will find the thinner cows generally wean the most lbs, and most of the time the cow is fat because she is not working hard enough!

I'm going to have to disagree. Some cows give everything to their calf, and tend to come in at the end of the year thinner than the rest. But our best (heaviest) calves at weaning the last two years have come off cows that are still in ideal condition at the end of the year. You don't have to sacrifice performance (WPDA) to get easy keeping cows. Good records should help you identify those genetics in your herd. I don't like to settle, especially when I know you can get it all if you're patient enough.

 

[KW4071]

When you wean replacement heifers, do you feed grain or do they just get grass/hay/mineral?

 

[c farmer]

My replacement heifers and steers get fed corn silage and alfalfa baleage and a homemade feed.

 

[dun]

When you wean replacement heifers, do you feed grain or do they just get grass/hay/mineral?

Pature or hay if needed and about 1% of their weight in 13% grain for 6-8 weeks then they are turened out with the cow herd and make it on the same pasture/hay the cows do.

 

[JRGidaho`]

When you wean replacement heifers, do you feed grain or do they just get grass/hay/mineral?

We feed no grain to replacement heifers. Just pasture and then hay when growing-quality stockpile is gone.

Our virgin heifers usually breed about 88% average in 45-day season. Any grain supplementation fed to the whole herd would just be to get an additional 6 or 7% bred and that would not be cost effective at all. This year they were at 95% in 45 days. At the end of the heifer breeding season, the 17+ month old bred heifers are put in with the cows and from that point on they are treated just like the mature cows.

Our usual rebreed as 2-yr olds for second calf is typically 90-94%. This year we had two open out of 240-some. It was a very good pasture, range, and weather year.

 

[fargus]

When you wean replacement heifers, do you feed grain or do they just get grass/hay/mineral?

Ours go on dry hay and get 3/4% of body weight of cracked oats/barley with protein supplement mixed in with Bovatec. It's cold enough here (and our hay isn't of the quality) that the amount of grain they are fed more than pays for itself. In the spring they are turned out on the same pasture as the cows and expected to finish growing themselves out and breed in a 60 day window.

 

[Aaron]

Does the wooly coat on a hereford give more insulation than a shiny Angus coat??? Sure looks that way from the snow depth.

In our environment of heavy snow, yes. A wooly coat will provide the needed thickness/insulation of hair to keep snow away from the hide, and preventing it from melting. Snow on slick haired cows will melt and cool them off. Think of 'wooly' as R25 and 'shiny' as R5. There are wooly Angus and slick-haired Herefords too. But Herefords have the thickest hide of any breed, so even a slick-haired Hereford will do better than a slick-haired Angus in cold weather. :cowboy:

 

[TSR]

Buying bulls from a place that doesn't baby their cows is a good starting place to build a herd of easy keeping cows. By not babying, I mean a beef cow should never receive anything other than range, pasture, and hay. I would prefer if they never got hay, but most people haven't made it that far yet.

When I buy bulls, I probably spend 90% of my time looking at the cow herd and cow records. If I don't like at least 90% of the cows I see in the pasture, I wouldn't buy a bull there. If I'm satisfied with the cows, I'll spend about 5% of my time looking at the paperwork, and 5% looking at specific bulls.

If you're buying females, it's the same thing. Look closely at the cow herd they are coming out of and find out as much as you can concerning how they are fed. An easy fleshing cow should never need anything besides the basic pasture & hay package.

One key to not letting easy keepers get fat is remember you can run a higher stocking rate of easy keepers than hard keepers. Keep your cows in the condition you want by how much pasture you allocate.

Mineral supplementation is necessary if your soils are mineral deficient. If they're not, feeding mineral has little effect on cow condition and performance.

Good points, JRG. I would add, I still like to look at those $EN epds (they've worked for me in choosing easy keepers) if you are looking at Angus cattle, just remember to look at the other epd's also that might be important to you, especially the milk epd as it seems to get lower as the $EN epd gets higher.