Feeding Urea

[ONThorsegirl]

I was wondering if anyone here has had experience feeding Urea to Cattle, or Sheep, any Rumen for that matter. If you have fed it what have you thought of it? What were your results? and Where you impressed with the outcomes?

Melissa

[JeffNY]

If you feed it, it has to be used as a protein source, to boost the protein in grains. If you overfeed it, you can burn a cow out. It is synthetic. If your looking to boost proteins in your grains, mixing different types of grains, to raise the protein levels can be done. Soybean meal is 44-48% protein, another protein source is distillers grains. Blending distillers, soybean, corn meal and wheat mids (cookie meal, aka bakery by-products, help to sweeten the feed). Can give you a nice blend, both protein (depending what you add for corn meal), and energy.


A good location to check out, read up on Urea is.

http://www.milkproduction.com/Librar...ngredients.htm

Scroll down, and you will find Urea. As I said, it is used as way to boost protein, vs using other feeds to boost it. It has a value of 281% CP on a Dry Matter basis. So it isn't used heavily.


Jeff

[Ronney]

Melissa, I have to say that I've never heard of anybody feeding urea to cattle over here and after reading Jeff's post I'm not sure that I would want to. What we do is spread it over paddocks to boost grass growth and it is not recommended that it be used frequently as the grass is "forced", has little nutritional value and will eventually burn out.

I've used it a couple of times to boost growth when we've had unseasonable weather and growth has been slow, and as a fill in it was good but I wouldn't contemplate using it all the time.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[arcticow]

Fed it to cows & goats both. Seems to do best with lower quality hay. Really good forage doesn't have enough fiber to best use it. I'd raise protien by changing grains first. I would really want more oats & less corn. If your mill will mix it in, it does cut feed cost, but please do yourself a favor...don't mix it your self. Way too easy to overdo.IMHO

[unioncreek]

If you use it in the right proportions livestock will actually do very good on it. It doesn't take a lot to improve the quality of your feed. You can also use anhydrous ammonia on low quality hay and forages to double the amount of protein and break down the fiber for easier digestions. If you are only feeding a few animals is doesn't pay to attempt to mix a ration with urea. If you buy your feed by the ton and the mill can blend it in that's about the only way I would used it to.

Bobg