Time to look at your beef diets?

It’s now November and with all the wet weather we’ve been having recently many cattle, beef or dairy, are now in as they are making too much mess while still out to grass.

Now that your beef cattle are in, is time to review how they are fed over the coming winter? After early season concerns, people seem to have plenty of forage in stock but with variable quality, particularly 1^st cut as many people cut late due to the wet spring we had.

Thinking out loud, I haven’t seen any 3^rd cut yet but I’m wondering if some peoples 3^rd cut might even be better than their 2^nd cut, and maybe even their 1^st given that we effectively had a double spring this year with growth rates, and grass quality in July/August where we would normally see it in April.

I do some fresh grass, for grazing, testing with some dairy clients and the results in October where still far higher than you’d expect with over 12ME & 28% CP!

Having plenty of forage though doesn’t mean you are feeding your cattle correctly, there still needs to be a correctly balanced diet, to ensure they are achieving the correct/desired growth rates over winter.

I’ve spoken to people that have just fed what they’ve always fed to their beef cattle and only achieved 0.3kgDLWG. The cost of feeding these cattle was immense compared to what they could have been. You need to see the return on this investment. For housed cattle they should ideally be achieving DLWG of 1.0kg and greater.

The cost for beef cattle is the housing and feeding them. The quicker you can turn them over then the more chance you have of making money from them!

This last week or two I’m starting to see people on social media asking how much of this or that they should feed their beef cattle. Get someone like myself in to feed your cattle properly! I’m not worried where you source your feed from, I’m here to offer you the correct advice.

For the sake of a few silage samples, at £20+VAT for a standard sample, and a few hours of my time, you’ll more that make that investment back to ensure you are feeding your cattle correctly!

A good example of why you should test your forages yearly is I have a dairy client who when I started dealing with him several years ago told me that previously they had always used a “standard” maize sample, “because maize is maize”. I insisted we test it, and for the cost of £20, I saved him 0.5kg blend/cow/day! Starts to add up!

Doesn’t matter your system, the diets still need correctly balancing. For many beef farms, they have the grass silage, a source of starch, maize and or wheat, and usually all they need is to add some protein but ensuring the right amount.

Too much and the animals will just grow and not put on cover, too little and they will just get fat and not grow the frame.

For the sake of the sample and maybe four/five hours of my time, including a visit to your farm, I can put together a practical diet, that works within your system, on your farm, to try and achieve desired growth rates.

Another example of doing this is a couple of winters ago I started dealing with a beef client, that was weighing his cattle, and getting frustrated with 0.6kg DLWG. His wife convinced him to get me in, and so I took some samples, had a discussion, and I didn’t buy anything else. Nothing new was purchased, I just re-organised the feed already on farm, to correctly ensure each group was being fed as required.  A month later he’s ringing me because he’s now achieving an average of 1.2kg DLWG!

Like I’ve already said, nothing fancy or new was added, I just rebalanced the feed to each of the different groups, and then he was achieving what he wanted to.

Paid for those few hours of my time in no time!

So, with your beef cattle now housed is it time to take a look at your beef diets?

If you would like to discuss anything in this article further, please contact FAR registered Beef & Dairy Nutritionist & CowSignals® Master Andrew Jones on 07534 684782 or click the "Contact Us Now" button below.