Loose or Pellets

[dcara]

I've been feeding a 14/65 (CP/TDN) loose bulk feed to my feedout calves for a few years now with better success than when I was mixing my own. I feed about 2% BW plus free choice hay. With the significant increase in feed prices I am looking again for lower cost feeds. I've noticed that some of the pelleted (3/8ths size) feeds are a little cheaper. I found one with very similar values of CP, TDN and roughage as the loose that I've been feeding. Does anyone have any thoughts on pellted vs. loose?

 

[TexasBred]

With pelleted feed their is no sorting and picking thru the feed, but then if you grind your grain, etc. fine enough they won't be able to pick either. Not much dust with pelleted feeds either.

What's the cost on that 14/65 you're feeding? Like most creeps it will work if you feed enough of it but I'd want a low fiber and higher TDN feed. You can feed fiber/roughage much cheaper yourself than buying it in the bag and often the fiber in creep feed is something like rice hulls or peanut hulls which are almost totally undigestible.

 

[dcara]

The 14/65 I get from the NE Texas Farmer Coop in Sulphur Springs is up to $11.50cwt. The pellets I've found are $9.65cwt. Both use cottonseed hulls for roughage. These are freezer beef calves about 800lbs when I start them. I think the problems I used to have with digestion when I was mixing my own was because I was feeding fiber/roughage separately. All I know for sure right now is that since I've been feeding the premixed bought feeds with roughage included I haven't had any digestion problems

 

[funky 4-Her]

We always fed loose stuff, my dad didnt trust the feed companys. He said you never know what kind of s##t they can/will put in the pellets that you wont know about.

 

[larryshoat]

We always fed loose stuff, my dad didnt trust the feed companys. He said you never know what kind of s##t they can/will put in the pellets that you wont know about.

Your dad is a wise man. A little bit of urea or feather meal or whatever can make some cheap protein.

Larry

 

[TexasBred]

Larry that's very true. And the way ingredients are listed now everything is always very vague....ie: roughage products?? That could be anything....Grain By-Products...there are hundreds of them. Then they throw you a curve by throwing in a little bit of chopped corn and you see every piece of it. What you don't know is that what you see is ALL the corn that is in the feed.

 

[funky 4-Her]

Very true Texas. We have been " screwed over" so many time by feed companies, either they do wrong rations or they put in something completly different from what we ordered. Probably the best (worst) one was the last load of feed that we got. It was a load of just ground corn and it so happens that they were cleaning out the dryer and a couple other bins so we ended up with all the rotten sh!t off the bottom. If there had been grain or beans in with it, probably wouldnt have been so bad. The cows went off feed and pritty much stopped producing milk ( they were almost dry ) and the calves lost a lot of weight and condition due to one batch of poor feed. Really wish that we had sold them 2 weeks sooner when they looked better but what can you do??

 

[TexasBred]

Funky if they don't deliver what you ordered turn it down. They'll eventually learn you're not one they can jerk around.