Fattening cul friesian cows

5 wheel drive

I am trying to fatten a few empty cows that have been dried off. Any advice? I’m currently feeding them hay and meal. They are getting about 8 kg of a beef coarse ration. Will this be enough?

stretch film

5 wheel drive wrote: »

I am trying to fatten a few empty cows that have been dried off. Any advice? I’m currently feeding them hay and meal. They are getting about 8 kg of a beef coarse ration. Will this be enough?

Can you replace the hay with good quality silage.

Bass Reeves

If the hay is very good quality cut early jI be or second cut that was saved as hay .it would be fairly ok. However this is unlikely. I would be the same as Stretch and change to silage. As well how good is the course beef ration and what protein. If the beef ration is 14%P or over would feed only 4kgs and feed 4kgsof straight barley. It can be bought in bags for sub 220/ Ton from some merchants and co-op. Just make sure it us goid quality that there is plenty of flour in it.

5 wheel drive

Bass Reeves wrote: »

If the hay is very good quality cut early jI be or second cut that was saved as hay .it would be fairly ok. However this is unlikely. I would be the same as Stretch and change to silage. As well how good is the course beef ration and what protein. If the beef ration is 14%P or over would feed only 4kgs and feed 4kgsof straight barley. It can be bought in bags for sub 220/ Ton from some merchants and co-op. Just make sure it us goid quality that there is plenty of flour in it.

Ya I have good silage but I’m keeping it for the Milkers. Anyone any idea how long it would take to fatten them on average to good quality hay and meal over good silage and meal.

mahoney_j

5 wheel drive wrote: »

Ya I have good silage but I’m keeping it for the Milkers. Anyone any idea how long it would take to fatten them on average to good quality hay and meal over good silage and meal.

I hate hay no better way to strip bcs off stock ,

Buford T. Justice XIX

5 wheel drive wrote: »

Ya I have good silage but I’m keeping it for the Milkers. Anyone any idea how long it would take to fatten them on average to good quality hay and meal over good silage and meal.

Hay is generally made from grass that is well gone from highly digestible leaf into lowly digestible stem. Stem is higher in dry matter but lower in quality so it's a trade off between quality and ease of saving.

If you are feeding them hay, I would say they would need an extra kg or two a day over those getting average silage and even more over good quality silage to get the same weight gain out of the hay versus the silage.

Bass Reeves

5 wheel drive wrote: »

Ya I have good silage but I’m keeping it for the Milkers. Anyone any idea how long it would take to fatten them on average to good quality hay and meal over good silage and meal.

It all depends on what condition they are at the start of the process and what weight they need to gain for to slaughter. I usually target a sale daye as opposed to a slaughter weight. If I was feediong at present I be feeding to slaughter in early January. After that I would feed to to finish at that time. In general if there is going to be a serious price lift early/mid January is a good time.

If you do not want to use your good silage I would increase the ration. Believe it or not you may be better off feeding poor quality( as opposed to poorly saved hay) with a high rate of ration as it preforms a similar function to straw in this case. However you are at or entering the stage where you are limited to how long you can feed them 70-100 days is all the stomach will carry this diet for.

Are they well dosed if not dose them as no pint feeding undosed cattle. Do for both fluke and worms. As well feed 100 grams of limestone flour if it is not in the ration already. Depending on weight I would get them to 10-12kgs of 50% ration /50% barley to have them finished for Christmas/early january

kerry cow

There's no profit in it sell them now and save the expense .

5 wheel drive

kerry cow wrote: »

There's no profit in it sell them now and save the expense .

I think you might be on to something. You can tell what cows put on condition easy and some no matter how much feed they get they will never put on weight. Think I might off load a few of them.

blue5000

5 wheel drive wrote: »

I am trying to fatten a few empty cows that have been dried off. Any advice? I’m currently feeding them hay and meal. They are getting about 8 kg of a beef coarse ration. Will this be enough?

What is this costing you per hd per day? Roughly €2 a day? I think KC might be on the right track.

If the withdrawal periods are up I think you'd be as far on to slaughter asap.

K.G.

The trick seems to be is to have them drieded up well with enough flesh that a fella can buy and be fairly sure they are going ok and finished and out of his yard in 60-70 days.legend has it that some lads are using credit from marts and feed mills in this game so that they only hold for 60 days so they can have them killed before paying the bills.also you havr no bargaining power wituh small numbers at the factory on your own