Texas Bred, regarding wet brewers grain

[woodswalker]

Thanks for all of your nutritional advice you give to this forum. I have a couple of questions/scenarios I think you can advise me on, if you have a minute.

I am getting a thousand pounds of wet brewers grain a week.

I am feeding it to a bull, two cows with calves and three 800 pound steers, that are on pasture and have free choice grass hay available. I have read I can feed it free choice, once they are acclimated to it. To ease them into it, I started feeding 3-5 gallon buckets the first week, 4 second week, then moved to 6 buckets this week. I haven't seen any visible problems with the cattle. They clean it up every time. I'm essentially up to a bucket per cow per day.

Does this sound reasonable? I've been feeding it for almost a month now. should I be ready to go free choice at this point, or should I continue with the gradual increase of a bucket per week? How much time do I need to ease them into it, so as not to have any belly aches or worse?

I expect my supply to be increasing in the future, and want to take all the brewery offers me, so I continue to be "the guy."

Around October I will split the three steers off to fatten, and feed them for 90 days or so and butcher around January first. I was thinking of giving the free choice hay, 3,4,5,6 whatever buckets of WBG, and top dress it with a couple buckets of ground ear corn/ peanut meal feed to add some energy to the equation. Sound like it will work?

I am getting a couple of weaned heifers in the next month or so. They are coming from a grass fed operation, and have had very little contact with grain. How careful should I be with them around the WBG? I'd like them to get to growing, so thought about putting them in with the steers for the fall to pack some groceries on them, but don't want to bust them up since they've never had any grain.

Thanks a lot to TB and anyone else that contributes. This forum is a great resource!

 

[ez14.]

When I started feeding it I just dumped a barrel in at a time (lasted 2 days at first) so free choice and didn't have any problems at all. I didn't do anything to acclimate them. Because most of the starches and sugars are gone I don't think you will have to worry about acclimating them

 

[TexasBred]

Not a lot to add. It's a good feed but can vary greatly in nutrients. Once processed most of the starches have been removed. Grain source can vary from one company to the other but really you're no longer feeding grain but only the residue along with "hops" a good source of fiber. Begin with a small amount then begin increasing. Remember it's very high in moisture even though it may not look like it so it will take about 4 lbs. of brewers grain to get one pound of actual dry matter from it. If you want more energy and a little more weight gain you can always stir some corn into the mix. Hope it does you a good job.

 

[skyhightree1]

My cows won't touch a hop