Feeding shelled corn

[Shaw]

Hello, I just recently found this forum and have found a lot of answers to my questions reading all the older posts. I have a few questions that I wasn’t able to find the answers for about feeding out my steers. I have seven steers ranging from 400 to 800lbs. They are penned up in a feeding area and I want to feed them out as fast as possible. I have access to shelled corn so I would like to feed them out with this. I know to put them on full feed is 1.5% to 2% of there body weight. I don’t have a scale to weigh them so I am just guessing on what they weigh. (Not the best but what else can you do?) That being the case I am feeding them shelled corn at about what I think is 2% of there body weight, and two to three pounds of hay (roughage) per head per day. Here are my questions; the corn is about 7% protein, should I add something to get the protein up to around 12% or 14%? What should I use to do this? I can buy soybean meal at the local elevator and add it to the corn or maybe some kind of pellet? Any thought would be appreciated, also if it looks like I am doing something wrong please let me know what. Thanks for any comments.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Can you get a good buy on Alfalfa?

 

[TexasBred]

I'd feed AT LEAST as much hay as I fed grain. This will bulk up the diet some and prevent rumen problems. It wouldn't hurt anything to add some soybean meal or cottonseed meal especially if the cattle are presently undernourished.

 

[Shaw]

Can you get a good buy on Alfalfa?

Not around here, that stuff is like gold. A lot of horse people want it so it runs the price way up. Its going for $6, $7, or more for a small bale!

I'd feed AT LEAST as much hay as I fed grain.

I was always told that if you feed grain you just give enough hay for roughage. Had something to do with the starch in the grain messing up the rumans abiliaty to handle hay? Is there any truth in that or should I be giveing more hay?

It wouldn't hurt anything to add some soybean meal or cottonseed meal especially if the cattle are presently undernourished.

They look pretty good, not undernourished at all, I just thought the soybean meal would help the daily weight gain? The soybean meal will just be an extra cost for me so if it doesn't help speed up the growth, then I would rather not use it. It just seems that most bought cattle food is around 12%.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Shame- it would have made things real easy for you

You can feed out calves with 10% real stemmy hay- need the scratch factor more than nutrients.
But you had better know what you are doing and have feeding the calves your #1 job for EVERY DAY.

Safer to go with 25% good hay (scratch and nutrition)
about 6.5% SBM or more if your hay has less than 10% P
And the rest with corn

Thats still a HOT feed- and you still have to manage it for gut health.

 

[Shaw]

You can feed out calves with 10% real stemmy hay- need the scratch factor more than nutrients.
But you had better know what you are doing and have feeding the calves your #1 job for EVERY DAY.

Safer to go with 25% good hay (scratch and nutrition)
about 6.5% SBM or more if your hay has less than 10% P
And the rest with corn

Thats still a HOT feed- and you still have to manage it for gut health.

I have a lot to learn yet. Why would feeding only 10% stemmy hay be tough, what would happen?

So If I was feeding say 100lbs a day (made up number for easy understanding), it would be 25lbs good hay, 6.5lbs of SBM, and 68.5lbs of corn?

Also, what would make it easy with alfalfa? I am thinking you would say don't worry about the SBM and make up the differance with the alfalfa?

Sorry, one more thing. What do you mean by a "HOT" feed?

 

[TexasBred]

Mix your corn and meal at about 85% corn, 15% Hi-Pro Soy, then if you feed 3/4 grain and 1/4 hay you'll have about a 12% ration. Personally I'd still feed more hay if they were mine.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Do a search on Google for "University;feedlot rations"
You need to have more background than anyone here could give you(time wise).

 

[mnmtranching]

Feeding shelled corn is a good idea, most of the time it's the cheapest way to go. For fastest growth I would work the calves up to full corn, all they want, no need to figure amount by body weight and let them have free choice good hay. They will eat what they need. For the extra protein, why not? give them a block or tub, with protein, minerals, vitamins, and salt. Cattle will use it as they need it.

 

[Shaw]

Do a search on Google for "University;feedlot rations"
You need to have more background than anyone here could give you(time wise).

Thank you, I have searched a lot of differant things trying to learn, but I haven't tried that one yet.


So the general take is to feed as much hay as they want? Then maybe forget the SBM and just slowly go to full corn. Again for me I can get shelled corn some what cheap, SBM is $18 per 100 around me so maybe better to just go with hay, corn?

 

[KMacGinley]

No.... You need enough protein to get them up to around 12%. Feed 2 lbs of 48% soybean meal per head with your corn. It doesn't matter about the hay, feed it free choice if you want to but keep some hay in front of them to prevent acidosis.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

See if you can find some corn gulten pellets wouldn't take much to get the protein up .

 

[grannysoo]

They are only grow so much per day regardless of how much protein you pile to them. They will squirt the extra out the back end....

Free choice hay at all times.

 

[terra8186]

I can buy soybean meal at the local elevator and add it to the corn or maybe some kind of pellet?

I had shelled corn this year and I had the elevator grind it with nutrient & protein pellets. They charged me $12 to grind 4000lbs and bag it (in my bags). I also had some shelled corn that I didn't have ground. I bought some pellets and looked on the bag for the mixing ratio. I just mix the pellets in with the shelled corn when I scope it out. In short, Ask the elevator what they can do to help you out.

 

[oakcreekfarms]

A good friend of mine feeds corn and whole soybean to his calves, they grow very well. I believe it is 4 lbs of corn to one pound of soybean or something close to that. our feed is Corn, soybean meal, soybean hulls, and oats. We free feed the grain and provide 5lbs of good quality hay per head per day for about 3 months. Most of the time the cattle eat around 15lbs of grain and then the rest is hay. we had some calves gain 6lbs a day, and our average was around 5lbs per day gain. So they were consuming about 5.5lbs to gain 1 lb during this time.

 

[Shaw]

A good friend of mine feeds corn and whole soybean to his calves, they grow very well. I believe it is 4 lbs of corn to one pound of soybean or something close to that. our feed is Corn, soybean meal, soybean hulls, and oats. We free feed the grain and provide 5lbs of good quality hay per head per day for about 3 months. Most of the time the cattle eat around 15lbs of grain and then the rest is hay. we had some calves gain 6lbs a day, and our average was around 5lbs per day gain. So they were consuming about 5.5lbs to gain 1 lb during this time.

Does your friend get his soybeans roasted or are they just straight out of the field?


Thank you all for your comments and suggestions! :tiphat:

 

[mnmtranching]

A good friend of mine feeds corn and whole soybean to his calves, they grow very well. I believe it is 4 lbs of corn to one pound of soybean or something close to that. our feed is Corn, soybean meal, soybean hulls, and oats. We free feed the grain and provide 5lbs of good quality hay per head per day for about 3 months. Most of the time the cattle eat around 15lbs of grain and then the rest is hay. we had some calves gain 6lbs a day, and our average was around 5lbs per day gain. So they were consuming about 5.5lbs to gain 1 lb during this time.

You are doing purty good. :tiphat:

 

[oakcreekfarms]

Yes he has them roasted, it is the same feed that he feeds his first calf heifers before and after they calve.

I am not completly sure if what I told you is exact on what he does, but I think it is fairly close. You should be able to get some good gains from that type of mix because of the protein and fat content of those beans.

 

[Angus Cowman]

A good friend of mine feeds corn and whole soybean to his calves, they grow very well. I believe it is 4 lbs of corn to one pound of soybean or something close to that. our feed is Corn, soybean meal, soybean hulls, and oats. We free feed the grain and provide 5lbs of good quality hay per head per day for about 3 months. Most of the time the cattle eat around 15lbs of grain and then the rest is hay. we had some calves gain 6lbs a day, and our average was around 5lbs per day gain. So they were consuming about 5.5lbs to gain 1 lb during this time.

You are doing purty good. :tiphat:

I don't think your math adds " so they were consuming about 5.5lbs to gain 1lb"
That isn't very good conversion I feed 3-4lbs of 14% feed and run on pasture and my gain is usually 2.7 to 3.2 lbs per day which is a 80 to 90% conversion ratio on the grain so if you are feeding 15 lbs of grain and only getting about a 49% conversion on your grain something don't figure or am I misreading something

 

[oakcreekfarms]

My cattle (and we are a small operation) have gained around 2.2lbs a day on grass and momma. They are fairly efficient to my standards.

You are talking about something completly different. There is no way to tell feed conversion of just grain unless they are in a pen with no hay or other feed what so ever. Your cattle are still consuming 2-3% of their body weights regardless of if they are eating it in grain, hay, or pasture. Your cattle aren't gaining 3lbs a day on the 4lbs of feed you feed them.

I calculated an average of how much grain my calves went through by taking the amount of grain put into the feeder, divided by the number of days the feed lasted, divided by how many animals were eating on that grain. Then I fed about 5lbs of hay per calf on top of that, the actual conversion of just this was around 4.5lbs of feed per 1lb gained, however I assume they ate a little of the left over dead grass so I added an extra pound onto their conversion. So I guess the conversion is a close estimate, but maybe not 100%. I believe I read somewhere that an estimate to go by is 7:1 for cattle

Maybe I need to go back and look at my numbers, but I think they are pretty close. If someone sees a problem with my math let me know.