nuts or grass or both for finishing bullocks

max12

hello there, just looking for opinions from other beef finishers.

i have 25 good bullocks (ave 600kg liveweight) on good grass.

I am thinking of starting to give them bull nuts.

is this necessary seeing as they have great grass at the min but obviously the quality will start to drop as we head towards sept and onwards.

I was thinking of giving them almost 7 pound of nuts per day for first month (3 x 25kg bags) and 11 pounds (5 bags per day) for last month when grass is starting to get scarce and quality goes down.

what would others recommend. they are all charolais cattle that won't get too fat or anything like that.

pakalasa

Get cheap ration direct from a mill in 500Kg bags, forget about the nuts. Why pay to have it in nut form, waste of time.

max12

pakalasa wrote: »

Get cheap ration direct from a mill in 500Kg bags, forget about the nuts. Why pay to have it in nut form, waste of time.

would cheap ration be as good as Bull Nuts................... wouldn't have thought so.

snowman707

max12 wrote: »

would cheap ration be as good as Bull Nuts................... wouldn't have thought so.

you are going to use about 6 ton ( from your figures) if you spare €70 per ton thats 420


you say they are on "great" grass,

I would be looking at a 3 way mix with a fairly high barley content ,minerals should not be necessary

What are the bull nuts costing ?

whelan1

you would buy 2 tonne of cheap ration for the price of 1 tonne of bull nuts , unless you have money to burn i would go with the cheaper....

reilig

whelan1 wrote: »

you would buy 2 tonne of cheap ration for the price of 1 tonne of bull nuts , unless you have money to burn i would go with the cheaper....

I agree and I always have the feeling that they are manufacturing nuts for a reason - would it not be easier and cheaper for them not to process the meal into nuts and sell it whole?? It would still be the same weight. Are they putting something into the nuts that they don't want you to see - like a lower grade input?? (I'm not suggesting that they are - before someone gets their wires crossed).

Also, has anyone any information on how cattle digest nuts in comparison to lets say a 3 way mix?

whelan1

nuts are a bit handier at this time of year , as the bloody crows love the coarse ration , its harder to rob the nuts , but doesnt justify the price:rolleyes:

Tora Bora

whelan1 wrote: »

nuts are a bit handier at this time of year , as the bloody crows love the coarse ration , its harder to rob the nuts , but doesnt justify the price:rolleyes:

Agreed. I'm creep feeding weanlings, and I have to say, I have crows which are heavier than some of the calves, with the amount of meal they are robbing :mad:
Next year I'm going to tag and regsiter a handfull of crows with the dept. Should make a killing in the fall:cool:

Shauny2010

I think you need to do your sums carefully this fall. By All accounts feedstuffs are dearer this year by 10 to 15%. If they have "great grass" this is as good as concentrates on a pound for pound bases. I think the Bull nuts is a bit of a rip off really also so is the bull ration which looks like leftover nuts and ration mixed up with a pile of molasses!

leg wax

Tora Bora wrote: »

Agreed. I'm creep feeding weanlings, and I have to say, I have crows which are heavier than some of the calves, with the amount of meal they are robbing :mad:
Next year I'm going to tag and regsiter a handfull of crows with the dept. Should make a killing in the fall:cool:

had the same problem , moved the feeder to a dif field away from sucks and fed the crows some food with pigeon bait. its very quiet around here now.

MfMan

I always feed ration (beef nuts) for 4+ weeks even with fairly good grass when finishing - just wouldn't take the chance without it. Much better chance of increasing slaughter weight plus a grade or within-grade improvement. Factories prefer meal-fed cattle also I think. I've used buffalo nuts the past couple of years and am impressed with it's performance, though I finish more than 50 cattle per year, have a silo and can make economies of scale.

Tora Bora

leg wax wrote: »

had the same problem , moved the feeder to a dif field away from sucks and fed the crows some food with pigeon bait. its very quiet around here now.

Often thought about doing similar, but wouldnt be comfortable with likely collateral damage, to other small birds in particular. Anyway, there's and awful lot of crows around. Even if you poison a rake of them, more will replace them in jig time i'd imagine.

whelan1

my crows are moving to the neighbours cornfield:)

leg wax

MfMan wrote: »

I always feed ration (beef nuts) for 4+ weeks even with fairly good grass when finishing - just wouldn't take the chance without it. Much better chance of increasing slaughter weight plus a grade or within-grade improvement. Factories prefer meal-fed cattle also I think. I've used buffalo nuts the past couple of years and am impressed with it's performance, though I finish more than 50 cattle per year, have a silo and can make economies of scale.

what are buffalo nuts,who supplies them.

max12

whelan1 wrote: »

you would buy 2 tonne of cheap ration for the price of 1 tonne of bull nuts , unless you have money to burn i would go with the cheaper....

cheers for all the responses on this.

however, fair enough that cheap ration is cheaper than bull nuts but if I were to give the cattle a bag of taytos every day it would be cheaper again but don't think it would be much good in terms of weight gain and kill out in the factory in couple of months time.

what I'm looking for is to compare weight gain/kill out versus best nut/ration to give.

can anyone advise if the (cheaper) ration rates well in terms of weight gain and kill out weight?

max12

snowman707 wrote: »

you are going to use about 6 ton ( from your figures) if you spare €70 per ton thats 420


you say they are on "great" grass,

I would be looking at a 3 way mix with a fairly high barley content ,minerals should not be necessary

What are the bull nuts costing ?

what other things in the mix should I look for besides barley?

the bull nuts are €265 a ton in the 25kg bags to 245 in the bulk bag. what should a 3 way mix cost me?

vanderbadger

max12 wrote: »

what other things in the mix should I look for besides barley?

the bull nuts are €265 a ton in the 25kg bags to 245 in the bulk bag. what should a 3 way mix cost me?

3 way mix was 160 to 165 euro per ton this winter gone by anyway, you could get a better mix with more ingredients for 185/t about, found the 3 way stuff good anyway
barley citris and gluten was the mix i used anyway i think

pakalasa

When you are finishing you need ENERGY not PROTEIN!
You dont even need minerals.

Protein is for growing cattle, increasing frame. This is what costs the money. Thats why weanling ration is always dearer.
Barley is a good source of energy. When you buy a 3 way mix, like mentioned above, you can actually see the barley in the mix. Just pick up a handful and it's obvious.
I think there is a lot of crap in nuts too, crap that would be obvious in a loose mix.

Here's a good article on rations, from 2008 but still valid.
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/2008/0927/farmmanagement/beef/feature.shtml

snowman707

max12 wrote: »

what other things in the mix should I look for besides barley?

the bull nuts are €265 a ton in the 25kg bags to 245 in the bulk bag. what should a 3 way mix cost me?

I would go with barley, citrus and or beetpulp, (some merchants have imported in stock) and whatever you can get of the the following soya hulls, rape or distillers,

for the last 4 to 5 weeks you could consider adding some maize meal.

cost?? feed prices are certainly on the up just now, maybe as mentioned 175 to 185 per ton

Dunedin

what do guys reckon to be the best for finishing cattle.............

less nuts for a longer period or

more nuts for a shorter period

snowman707

Dunedin wrote: »

what do guys reckon to be the best for finishing cattle.............

less nuts for a longer period or

more nuts for a shorter period

less RATION for a longer period

dryan

If you are buying in bulk (4 ton at a time), how long would you expect the ration to keep for? With the nut, they say they are good for 90 days - would you expect the same shelf life out of a ration?

reilig

dryan wrote: »

If you are buying in bulk (4 ton at a time), how long would you expect the ration to keep for? With the nut, they say they are good for 90 days - would you expect the same shelf life out of a ration?

Places around me will deliver 2 to 3 ton of ration. It will keep well for 90 days if you are storing it correctly - keep it away from moisture, etc.

To be honest, in my opinion, it is not financially viable to pay for storage facilities like a silo or insulated storage if you are not using more than 4 ton every 90 days. It would be more cost effective to get a storage tank or one of the JFC transportable meal bins and collect the meal from your local supplier's silo on a regular basis than to pay a couple of grand for a storage facility which you will not use to its full potential (or even half its potential if you are only filling it every 3 months).

At times during the year when I feed very little ration (spring & early summer) I have a 150 gallon steel tank which I can lift onto and off the trailer with a bale handler. It saves buying more than I need and I can still get it at a competative price in comparison to buying in bags.

http://www.jfcplastics.eu/FeedingTroughs.html#panel5

pakalasa

Over the winter I was buying 500Kg bags of loose meal. I was collecting it in a small cattle box, with side swinging back door. That way they could drop it into the box with a pallet truck. No worry about rain either as box is covered.
At home I took it off with my own pallet forks (DIY job) on the back of the tractor. I had no problems with rats either, just put some bait around it in the shed. Just left it on the pallet in the shed, no other cover
Worked a treat!

Sam Kade

pakalasa wrote: »

Over the winter I was buying 500Kg bags of loose meal. I was collecting it in a small cattle box, with side swinging back door. That way they could drop it into the box with a pallet truck. No worry about rain either as box is covered.
!

Unless you are transporting meal long distance there is no need to have it covered as even the heaviest shower of rain will not damage it