feeding bulls in shed

epfff

Have bulls in shed on high cereal diet
question is do i feed straw hay or silage with it?

bob charles

half straw / half hay or haylage if you had it

Muckit

What's the story with bulls and silage bob?
Is it too acidic or what to be feedng it with ab-lib meal?

bob charles

takes up too much room in their gut, they will over eat silage and leave the grain behind, resulting in poor intakes of grain. Im no expert as its 5 yrs since I last fed animals ad-lib meals and for good reason

Farmer Pudsey

I feed silage but it is very good 70+ dmd. If they are heavy bulls 500kg's+ I would build them on to 8kgs and then on to 10 kg's. I also allow them access to straw they eat very little a bale of straw would last 25 bulls a fortnight.

It is a waste of time feeding them poor quality silage I think however a lad a bit away from me feeds a very high protein ration/nut 18% (max 8kgs)and ad lib silage ( not sure of the quality) he seems to be happy enough with it.

jfh

Would baled silage be alright?
If not barely or wheaten straw

bogman_bass

what they need is fibre. soft silage isnt going to provide enough of that. straw best
then hay
then slilage from a strong medow

bob charles

the idea behind the half straw half hay is that they don't consume enough straw if straw alone, they won't consume allot of hay as the grain will be tastier and they will consume too much silage as that is too tasty. . Animals I have inside at the moment are getting silage of 76DMD but in my eyes this could be better (aiming for over 80dmd). We could learn allot about quality silage by looking how they do it up north. Targeting silage around 80DMD if your serious about using silage for fattening. There was research done in one of the Scandinavian countries feeding 82dmd silage to young bulls and nothing else. the gains they were achieving would put allot of the ad-lib cereal finishers LWG to shame

Muckit

Cutting in april so :rolleyes: Economics come into it. No bulk when cutting before June getting less silage per acre. Not good when your making pit and paying contractor per acre. But hear what your saying

Manoffeeling

Barley straw. It is only to help them cud.

bob charles

Muckit wrote: »

Cutting in april so :rolleyes: Economics come into it. No bulk when cutting before June getting less silage per acre. Not good when your making pit and paying contractor per acre. But hear what your saying

yeah first cutting late summer (sorry april):D

yellow50HX

might be a bit off topic but are you planning on using a diet feeder? with all the talk of giving them diffetent feeds would it make sense to use a diet feeder (numbers permitting). trying to get a good mix of different feeds can be difficult, silage + straw + hay + cerals.

we dont finish but would often mix the cows diet over the winter. We have them out on beet during day and give them silage in the shed at night. but sometimes mix in the straw if we have tight supplys of silage. have found the easyist way to mix the straw and silage is to roll out a bale of straw along in front of the barrier then put eh silage on top. the cows will eat down to the straw. we then push the whole lot in when they have it cleaned off. have found it gives a very good even mix.

bob charles

yellow50HX wrote: »

might be a bit off topic but are you planning on using a diet feeder? with all the talk of giving them diffetent feeds would it make sense to use a diet feeder (numbers permitting). trying to get a good mix of different feeds can be difficult, silage + straw + hay + cerals.

we dont finish but would often mix the cows diet over the winter. We have them out on beet during day and give them silage in the shed at night. but sometimes mix in the straw if we have tight supplys of silage. have found the easyist way to mix the straw and silage is to roll out a bale of straw along in front of the barrier then put eh silage on top. the cows will eat down to the straw. we then push the whole lot in when they have it cleaned off. have found it gives a very good even mix.

if it works for you, don't go confusing the system with a diet feeder.

Farmer Pudsey

yellow50HX wrote: »

might be a bit off topic but are you planning on using a diet feeder? with all the talk of giving them diffetent feeds would it make sense to use a diet feeder (numbers permitting). trying to get a good mix of different feeds can be difficult, silage + straw + hay + cerals.

we dont finish but would often mix the cows diet over the winter. We have them out on beet during day and give them silage in the shed at night. but sometimes mix in the straw if we have tight supplys of silage. have found the easyist way to mix the straw and silage is to roll out a bale of straw along in front of the barrier then put eh silage on top. the cows will eat down to the straw. we then push the whole lot in when they have it cleaned off. have found it gives a very good even mix.

Diet feeder= more expense, more work and often more waste.

If you ahd enough room at the feed face put the bales in front in one corner the cows will only eat what straw they require, I do it with bulls a bale between two pens and they pick away at it takes 25 of the at least two weeks to finish I think

yellow50HX

might have been a bit confusing earlier but we dont use a diet feeder, just saying how we deal with putting in an best amount of food for the cows. i was just wondering if for someone who is finishing cattle and relying on balanced diet to give even gain, would who need a diet feeder to provide an even mix if there are a number of things to be feed to the cattle.

Dont be daft

yellow50HX wrote: »

i was just wondering if for someone who is finishing cattle and relying on balanced diet to give even gain, would who need a diet feeder to provide an even mix if there are a number of things to be feed to the cattle.

Finishers perform better off diet-feeders. The fact that its a totally mixed ration means the rumen is better at digesting it. Cant remember the science behind the whole thing but yeah, they do perform better.
Mind you we've have had a diet feeder here for 20 years+ so cant say I've seen the difference personally, or can remember it anyway!

Thats not to say its for everyone. You have to have the numbers to justify it.
We have nutritional support from Keenan, so a nutrionalist comes out, tests the silage etc. etc. and then goes off and comes up with a mix. Very handy option, and very much tailored to our system, but again not for everyone.

Are the lads here feeding straw chopping it? Think I remember something about the chopped straw stimulating the rumen to perform better.
I'd notice if the straw wasnt chopped short enough the bulls would leave it in the trough. Then you'd end up forking it out, chopping it again and then they'd lick the trough clean.