Grass Fed in the Deep South

[gberry]

Anyone finishing cattle on grass in the deep south (FL, south AL, south GA, etc)? If so, what forage are you using? Are you having to plant annuals to get the gains that you need? Are there any times of the year that you can get adequate gains with perennials?

I have thought about finishing a few but I think I would have to plant a chain of annuals to have adequate gains. Anyone have any thoughts about this?

 

[Jogeephus]

Believe you will be better doing it in the winter months and useing annuals like, rye, oats and clover. Heat and humidity cuts there gain pretty bad in summer. Have butchered stockers that grazed winter annuals with very little corn to top off the deal.

Here is a link you might find interesting.

http://www.whiteoakpastures.com/index.html

 

[gberry]

I believe you are right, Jogeephus, about the winter annuals. But, if you could graze them for 120-150 days on ryegrass at 3 lbs/day, I figure they would have to be about 700 lbs at the time they started. That's pretty hard for us to achieve in 8 months. Which is why I was wondering about other forage species. I do think one alternative would be for us to fatten heifers which should finish quite a bit lighter.

 

[Jogeephus]

If I was going to try it, I'd use the winter annuals previously mentioned, then move them to ryegrass clover mix, then to Tift 85 grazing and Tiftleaf 3 grazing in the summer. You will get some appreciable gains on this combo.

Also, from my experience, you will be well served to use Dixie Crimson Clover in your ryegrass mix. Dixie does very well down this way and it produces knee deep grazing that they can't keep up with if you stock at 1 head to 2-3 acres. This combo will fatten them fast. (Assuming we get rain)

Do some reading on the digestibility of 85 as well. You will find that 3-5 lbs a day is not out of reach even in the summer. Problem is going to be in July and August - so now we are up to 10 months of good gains.

 

[gberry]

I was also thinking about perennial peanut. It's pretty expensive to plant, but I think it would give acceptable gains and may keep giving them right through the heat. You are right about the rain as well. It would be nice to have irrigated pasture if you had enough demand for grass finished beef.