Nutrition Lessons from our first 8 years.

[Gorignak]

In response to one of my posts, I was asked for further details on our feeding/mineral program.
I'd like to help.........No, I am not a cattle expert. BUT, that works in my favor. I live in a place that defines "hardscrabble". My "pasture" and hay choices are abysmal. www.facebook.com/UpsideDownsFarms/

Thos Moser is one of the best furnituremakers in the world. He commented early on that he liked to hire people with zero woodworking experience so he could train them. Old habits are hard to break.
" Daddy did it that way for years "...... daddy lost money the last 10 years he was farming, and he delivers mail now. No disrespect.....I'm a bodger, covered in sawdust, and happy to have never been to a Starbucks. I have no background in cattle. www.dryadstudios.com

I have plowed through thousands of pages of traditional stockmen's books. GO TO www.abebooks.com and buy old 1920-1960 agri textbooks and publishings for pennies.
The internet has become more diffuse and hard to rely on......BUT.....if you select studies and university work that is not intimately connected to a specific supplier or Corporate funding, you can find gems of information that will help us 2-10 cow people.

I have taken useful information, abandoned commercial directives, and assumed a wider definition of "stewardship" than is currently in vogue among agri-academics/economics. I have had to crunch a lot more numbers than my " Algebra 2 ", brain is comfortable with.

With the change in input of only 3-4 specific parameters, our results have been stunning.
Hay
Feed/DDG
Mineral Supplementation
Vaccination


If you do not have a hay test on the hay that you are, and will be, feeding.......CONVERSATION OVER.
Okay....for all of us that must know what our cows are eating, in order to keep them fit and healthy, here's what we have discovered.

"........ and your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax. " "19th Nervous Breakdown"/Rolling Stones

MOST.......NEARLY ALL of the nutritional parameters of cattle feeding have been well understood for 2 centuries. These parameters have been refined, and parsed ad ifinitum in hundreds of PhD dissertations and well-funded university research.

DM......CP%......ADF........ NDF........ TDN ......... NE ......... RFV ......
beef.unl.edu/learning/feedanalysis.shtml .....and MANY more nice presentations by multiple universities.
Google " Forage Analysis"...."Hay testing". My head still hurts ................ It took me 2 years to be able to discuss these parameters and know what to look for.
I cannot go into all of that now. There are some very simple conclusions....... your cow is not sick or unthrifty. Your cow is being fed hay that meets less than half their requirements. If you have fescue....you have a problem.
If you don't have a hay test....you have a problem.

We feed 14% + protein Bermuda Hay......it costs us $7/bale more than the abysmal " mixed grass" hay ( fescue 9%-11% protein ) we have here in Arkansas. I have to pay $40 for 5x6. 1300 lb bales of Bermuda.
We supplement with alfalfa. Look for alfalfa that tests to about RFV 150 . When a farmer has an overmature cutting, the dairy farmers are loathe to buy it. It does spectacular for beef cows. We pay about $60/1000 lb bale of RFV 150 alfalfa. It is not good enough for dairy cows, but fine for beef. We feed our milkers RFV 200 hay. We pay about $200./ton for that in big 4x4x8, 2000 lb squares.
Cows are meat eaters......they eat far more "meat" in the form of digesting the bacteria in their gut than you can imagine. And, those bacteria are eating/digesting hay. Bad hay = no food for bacteria and the cow suffers.
Hay is your cornerstone......take time to learn how hay works and how to deal with better or worse than you would prefer. TEST......PLEASE TEST your hay. DO NOT FEED CORN....SWEET FEED.....50/50...... ANY FEED WITH STARCH DESTROYS GUT BACTERIA IN THE RUMEN......

DDG....... Wooo-Hooo, modern science has produced a product that could not be better tailored to your cow's needs. I am talking about "dry" DDG.....it is available in several forms. You want a dry, granular powder, that is gold/yellow. It is usually 25%-27% protein and 10% fat. ALL OF THE STARCH HAS BEEN FERMENTED OUT, LEAVING ONLY CONPONENTS THAT COWS NEED.
We pay about $7. / 50 lb bag. We feed about 300 lbs a week. It does not store real well in the summer, so buying in bulk is hard to maintain.
Proper supplementation ranges from 1 lb/day to 7 lbs/day
Google will provide all the details. What DDG is perfect for, is balancing out bad hay. You can feed your cows like the richest rancher in the county. Proper nutrition can be achieved with almost any hay and DDG.
There is lots more to this....start out with Google and understand what DDG is, and what it provides.

CGM.....Corn Gluten Meal is also corn with the starch removed. DDG comes from fuel ethanol production. CGM is left after sugar production.

MINERALS....... if you are feeding cheap minerals in a feeder, free choice, we don't have much to discuss. Please consider the minerals I suggest, but free-choice is doomed to the same failures that "pour-on" products have, very poor efficiency.
ADM....... AMPT-P ....... chelated minerals that have turned our operation around.
The secret with ADM, AMPT minerals is that they focus on the health of the gut bacteria.....they are loaded with ingredients that encourage massive biological activity in the rumen.
www.performanceblenders.com/minerals.html
Our vet, who has 100+ cows said......." I know it is expensive, but the results are obvious. "

On the bright side...... I have a research paper that describes tests with 100% ...... 75% ........ 50% ...... and 0% of the chelated minerals mixed with ordinary cheap cattle minerals. The 75% ADM / 25% regular produced the best results at the lowest cost. We mix ours 50% /50% with regular minerals and FEED 2 OZ/DAY IN SOME DDG.
We do not do free choice, and every cow get their 2oz every day in a little feed. The DDG lets this work real smooth. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030218300614
FAST BIRTHS......CLEAN OUT IN AN HOUR......SUPERCHARGED CALF........ RE-BREED IN UNDER 45 DAYS...... JADE SHINY COATS........MASSIVE GUTS........TOTAL DIGESTION, MANURE LOOKS LIKE PUDDING WITH NO FIBER VISIBLE........ DISEASE RESISTANCE......... The benefits go on and on.
We also use MultiMin 90 3x a year. Rather than time it to a specific event, we just try and do everybody every 4 months, avoiding the heat of the summer. WE GIVE CALVES THEIR FIRST 1-2CC SHOT AT 1 WEEK OLD.

Vaccination...... a solid vaccination schedule should cover the obvious regional maladies. We have found that a broadened range of vaccinations yields healthier, more resiliant cows year-round. Two in particular.

Coronavirus..... this is the "paint-the-walls" winter scours, and various pneumonia. HEY....haven't I been hearing about this ? Vaccinate for this and you will be a happier stockman.

Foot Rot/Fuso/ Liver abscesses. Nothing more needs saying. Treating one case of hoof rot will cure you of the thrift that keeps you from vaccinating for this. I was told by a large butcher shop that does USDA inspection 1 day a week that they throw out 90% of the livers for abscesses. Yuck.......

As I said....I am dumb as a rock. But, my early misery and failures led me to re-evaluate my involvement with cattle. I want my cows as healthy as me or the family. But, it is not about what I want....we are stewards of these great animals. They deserve our full attention and understanding of their nutritional needs.

[mibunny]

Where do you buy your ddg?

[Gorignak]

That is a conundrum. You need a local mill that mixes and pelletizes its own feed. But, Harrison AR is small and has 2 such mills.
DDG does not pelletize well by itself. They can use 10% 20% for a protein boost in some formulations. The Range Cube products that tout that they augment pasture digestion usually contain DDG as a protein source.
Our mill bags it up for the local hardscrabble stockmen to pour out 1x a day at a rate of about 2lb/cow. The biggest get it in bulk. BUT IT IS HARD TO KEEP FRESH. About 2 weeks is tops in the summer.

[Deleted]

I'm glad you've dialed in what works in your area for your cows. There's a lot of good principles in what you've outlined.

DDG is a great feed if you are near a place where it's abundant. Here's a map showing areas where it's produced and readily available.

[mommasquilts]

@amyp, have you ever heard of the Shiner brewery doing anything like this?

[Deleted]

Feb 19, 2020 12:19:38 GMT -5 mommasquilts said:

@amyp, have you ever heard of the Shiner brewery doing anything like this?

I've never found a good source for DDG in our area. Most of the craft breweries and distilleries will give the wet distillers grains away for free. DDG usually run 35ish%cp by weight whereas the wet grains are only in the 5ish%cp by weight. I'm pulling this next part from waaaaay back when I took feeds and feeding...I think DDG can be included up to 40% on a dry matter basis in cattle diets. It's a good feed if you can find it.

[Gorignak]

Thanks for the map......maybe a little less than 40% with attention paid to PH and the Sulfur. We feed 1 oz livestock grade lime a day with the DDG. We keep tops at about 20%. BUT....we get to use alfalfa easily.
Well... I am amazed that we have it available and it is so difficult to find elsewhere. The poor storage is probably why.
I fed distillery mash to pigs in 1971....... a penny a gallon.

One thought...... this is sort of the initial pep talk we try and give to customers who buy a milk cow or Dexter. This information was unavailable to me until the maturing of the internet. Local suggestions yielded dismal results.

Paying attention to the math has yielded measurable results. Vet bills plummeted, and the ....." oh my " sound was more evident when folks looked at the cows. We bought 2 difficult Dexters for their genetics......cheap.......they were basket cases....lost calves, slow to clean, hard to rebreed, lethargic calves. Two years after putting them on the minerals we have rocket propelled calves and they re-bred in 45 days. Their field birth must have been flawless. We saw the minerals affect all our cows positively. BUT....you have to be feeding, at least, enough. The DDG let us bridge having bad hay long enough to get everything in shape

[rosalind]

Interesting discussion. Does your mineral company have a dairy version? From what I could see they were beef-focused.

As others mentioned with location, that affects so much. I'm blessed to live in some of the best alfalfa growing land in the country, so that's the basis of our feed program. Couldn't get corn from a mill, as it's not grown around here!

Nice to hear what works for different areas.

And I agree - old ag books are great!!

[prinellie]

We use non gmo - so that won’t work for us I don’t think 😟

[Gorignak]

We use non gmo - so that won’t work for us I don’t think 😟

I have been an Organic farmer since 1971. YEAH, 50 years..... I'm a 30 year old trapped in a 70 year old body. When the Ozark Co-operative Warehouse (1974-2005) bankrupted in 2005, they had a sign over the door.......... " Our longest serving members " My wife and my names were second on that list.

I wish Icould commiserate with you over non-GMO. The whole thing has gotten so screwed up that you have ZERO certainty that what you get in the bag is even non-GMO.
Sorry..... we have operated at the highest levels of sourcing those grains......the accountability has collapsed and exists on paper only.

Focus on more important things , .....and things you can really control.

Sorry.......

[Gorignak]

Interesting discussion. Does your mineral company have a dairy version?

This is described for beef producers....it is ABSOLUTELY the same for Dairy cows. I have a study on commercial milk production rising enough in a large herd to more than offset the cost. PLUS, the long-term health benefits were not evaluated. SO....it pays for itself in milk production.....and adds on over and over again in health benefits.

After 4 months, the cow's manure rinses out ( use a colander and hose on a fresh patty) showing near zero hay fragments....digestion is immensely improved. After a year.....green pudding. HUGE bellies........and 75%+ of our cows are cudding at any one time. 50% is the standard. You are lucky to live in the lush richness of the NW. I have less topsoil on my entire 160 acres than you have in your lawn.

[Gorignak]

My daughters raised Flemish Giant Rabbits for several years. THAT taught us all about an animal that uses bacteria as a middleman for their nutrition.
Once cows are on a nutritional decline, the repair and improvement are daunting. It is very hard to take a cow that has had a lifetime of bagged feed and poor hay, and get her gut operating like ours that have had good hay only most of their lives.
PLUS.....PLUS.....the mouse in the pantry is the fact that all of the Jersey Sires in the 50 page semen catalogs are being bred to support the systems in dairies of 700+ cows.......eating away at the Old World genetics that we all knew. There are sometimes a few Bulls at the end of the listing that are said to be derived from AU, NZ, or Norwegian stock. They have an emphasis on small size, and pasture/hay friendly digestive tracts.

[happyeverafter]

So is there anyone else here that uses DDG? I could get it pretty easy I think. Is it really better then using grain? If so, how would a person transition from grain to DDG?

[Gorignak]

It is 1000% better. The starch in grain is murder on the bacteria that digest hay. It is a downward spiral that is hard to arrest.
Okay...I am in the feed store.....in walks a Movie Cowboy.....small, wiry, twisted from too-many falls from a horse.
" I'm trying to fatten a steer. He is eating 25 lbs of 50/50 and he isn't growing or gaining. "
The mill owner recommended that he cut the grain and feed good hay and 5 lbs of DDG / day. I never heard the results, but I know what the mill owner knew. The massive grain consumption had the steer in metabolic trouble.

DDG causes ZERO rumen disruption......concentrated protein.......10%fat for energy...... One can balance all but the worst hay to a complete ration for maximum performance. AND ALL THE HAY IS DIGESTED RATHER THAN 'PASSED-THROUGH' because all the cellulose digestion has halted.

Yellow / Gold color.......the darker the more cooked and lower levels of nutrients. One needs to consult.....OR, just bite the bullet and mail some off with $20 to their state test lab for hay tests and you will know where you stand.

We add 1 TBS of super fine crushed limestone to each 2 lbs to negate any PH modifications. Transition with a simple replacement /substitute over a couple weeks......keep the hay in front of them 24/7. It takes about a month to balance and equalize.....hay consumption will rise.
2 lb / day will flesh out any Dexter.....add a 3rd lb for a lactating Dexter......the results are amazing.
Growing, larger breed, steers in the latter part of their development can be fed up to 7 lb / day. I would go online and Google the used of corn byproducts. There are lots of complex studies and easily understood publications in several Universities livestock section.
cattlemen publications have lots of info ( Drovers etc. ). Develop a plan based on the info that comes closest to your conditions.

www.drovers.com/article/boost-heifercow-diets-distillers-grains

[simplynaturalfarm]

I can control the non GMO by buying ingredients instead of mixes. Corn is gmo everywhere here. So, I control it by not feeding corn, soy, beets, by products etc. And by knowing the farmer I buy my stuff from. Glyphosates used on products are a big deal to me personally.

I'm glad you have found a system that works for your cows. And I am thankful you are very honest about what you feed and why.

I am extremely hesitant to post this because I do not want to sound argumentative. I was simply explaining how to get around the GMO concerns. Most of people I know who want to avoid things don't even know why they are avoiding it, so their solutions become ridiculous - like refusing to feed corn and soy so feeding traditional beet pulp and molasses instead which are both GMO. I've morphed into my culling and feeding choices, making different decisions some years because of availability, even cost, what I was comfortable with etc. I've worked with organic producers using products I would never use and hiding drugs I would never use, so I understand the joke labels can be.

I've used protein tubs with by pass protein when my hay was too poor for beef cows let alone dairy cows. It went against my personal choices, but I will never sacrifice a cows health for an ideal. Some years you are simply thankful you have access to these things!!

[Gorignak]

Don't fret argumentative..........squeaky wheels still are the first attended to.

Back when The Rodales still dominated Organic Farming, and there were thousands of hippies in every holler' in the Ozarks, I pushed back against the purist concept that all commercial fertilizer was bad...... There was no organics to be had.....period. Commercial fertilizer might mess with the worms....but using it and bush hogging down the lush growth increased the soil organics to where some agri effort could be tried. Our soil is so poor a Forsythia won't grow without a grow hole and a couple of scoops of manure and topsoil. In Maryland..... a Forsythia would need mowing close to keep it from spreading everywhere.....

I know how many hackles I raise when I say " I hate fescue" Well, " I hate fescue." It is a scourge. When we moved here in 1974, it was just replacing the native grasses and orchardgrass/clover as the dominant grass. We had one lonely bob-white quail who had avoided the fescue toxicity...one quail, the first year....... I haven't heard a bob-white in over 40 years.
That is not argumentative...it is a first volley in every war a small producer faces. Inputs...... how do each of us work around our local " environmental dislocation " ....too wet, what to feed.......too dry, what can I find.......too far, too hot. DDG has really bridged the gap for us. When it finally kicks in...hay consumption will rise.....if hay stocks are getting tight or $$$$$ we kick in an extra lb or two for the cows and the hay consumption will slow 10%-20%. Figure the cost of the DDG vs the cost of hay. Expensive, bad hay is where DDG shines. DDG is about $.15/lb.

Just sayin'..............

[rosalind]

Feb 20, 2020 9:05:41 GMT -5 Gorignak said:

all of the Jersey Sires in the 50 page semen catalogs are being bred to support the systems in dairies of 700+ cows.......eating away at the Old World genetics that we all knew.

My cow is out of a 1968 bull and she is definitely so different (easy keeping) compared to the modern genetics.

Our current bred heifer is out of modern (but not high production) bloodlines. I'm excited to see how she will do as a milk cow on our current feeding program. My old fashioned cow does well grain-free, I'm curious to see if Miss Briar can compete as well.

[Gorignak]

I saw some 1950 Guernsey semen on the Guernsey site that lists lots of old straws. We are dinner-table talk ready to pull the trigger on 10 straws of that. I'd like to see if we can find particular smaller sires, or if that info is lost and we just wing it.

hey....does anybody know the Rutter Bros. Dairy in York , PA ? It was a gem in the 1950's, with the most beautiful Guernseys.

[Deleted]

Feb 20, 2020 19:01:07 GMT -5 Gorignak said:

I saw some 1950 Guernsey semen on the Guernsey site that lists lots of old straws. We are dinner-table talk ready to pull the trigger on 10 straws of that. I'd like to see if we can find particular smaller sires, or if that info is lost and we just wing it.

Which Guernsey site? I'd like to look into that!

[rosalind]

Feb 20, 2020 19:01:07 GMT -5 Gorignak said:

I saw some 1950 Guernsey semen on the Guernsey site that lists lots of old straws. We are dinner-table talk ready to pull the trigger on 10 straws of that. I'd like to see if we can find particular smaller sires, or if that info is lost and we just wing it.

My husband grew up on a Guernsey dairy. If you have bull names, feel free to send me a message and he can probably give you some information on them.

Be aware, 1950s units are likely to be in ampules rather than straws... Not as easy to handle.