What percentage beef ration to feed store cattle

morphy87

I am feeding my store cattle beef ration over the winter, 2kgs a day, I usually feed them a 14 % ration that’s what we always done, I am just wondering would a 15% ration be better for store cattle growing over the winter?

blue5000

What age are they and how good is the silage?

_Brian

Have the silage tested and work up the feed requirnents from there.

There’s no point over feeding P in particular as extra is jest excreted as really expensive pee.

My gut feeling is average silage needs meal to keep stores Growing and As expensive as feeding meal is, you can’t have stores not growing for maybe a 4-5 month housed period.

cute geoge

what % protein ration is optimum to feed to stores with av. quality 2nd cut .Would stores need the same % protein ration as yearlings .I picked up a couple of bags of soya at co op and nearly fainted when I paid for them E11.70 for 25kg .What % protein are in soya hulls as I also bought a ton of this at E215/ton .I also have high energy 16 % p in the bin

Dunedin

_Brian wrote: »

Have the silage tested and work up the feed requirnents from there.
.

Last year local merchant was doing testing through the millers so I took two ‘separate’ samples from the one bale of silage - one returned 74% dmd and the other 67%.

Didn’t bother with the testing this year........

Dunedin

morphy87 wrote: »

I am feeding my store cattle beef ration over the winter, 2kgs a day, I usually feed them a 14 % ration that’s what we always done, I am just wondering would a 15% ration be better for store cattle growing over the winter?

I’d be going for 16%

morphy87

I haven’t tested the silage yet,they are 19 months old and they are also getting 6kgs of fodder beet, I presume for these type of cattle you would be better off with a higher protein than 14?

ruwithme

Fed store cattle here for many years with a shake of meal over the winter. I quit it a number of winters ago now as i reckon stock were coming out of the shed with far too much flesh on them.

Conclusion being it's grasses job next April and onwards to put on that weight cheaper than meal in a shed plus stock somewhat hungrier next spring will catch up with the mealed one at grass anyway in advance of slaughter in late summer early autumn

Bass Reeves

Dunedin wrote: »

Last year local merchant was doing testing through the millers so I took two ‘separate’ samples from the one bale of silage - one returned 74% dmd and the other 67%.

Didn’t bother with the testing this year........

Testing is an inaccurate science. As places on pits and different bales vary I have given up on getting bakes tested as well. High DM bales do not test well either. I aim to make bales end of May and second cut end of July/early August. However I consider DM as important as DMD. Very little analysis is done on this by Teagasc or other bodies. However anecdotal evidence would suggest that cattle do way better on mid to high DM silage compared to low DM silage. It's cheaper to make as well with better balers now able to reduce the bale count to 8/acres on the bale type I make.

I do not bother feeding ration to stores, I balance the silage with mins, vits, calcium and sodium and compensatory growth manages the rest