Fitting Ration??

weendogmom · #1 01/31/14, 06:59 PM

Can anyone tell me anything about a "Fitting ration"?

We have two dairy steers that we are raising for beef, and one future milker (3 animals total) - all within 2 months of each other, about 7-9 months old. I want to take them off calf starter and switch them to something else.

Our local mill doesn't have anything else besides calf starter and then a 16% Fitting Ration. Ingredients are ground corn, grnd oats, Wheat Bran and Middlings, Soy Bean meal dehulled, cane molasses, minerals and vitamins. Fat min is 3% and Fiber Max is 9%

Is this OK for them all? We do mostly hay and grass - they only get 1-2 lbs a day to keep them friendly and help with nutrition. I may increase more later on in the fall for fattening up one steer.

Looking for thoughts... I do not feed cheap by-product stuff from the big stores. We are not a big farm with our own grain mill or crops. Want to know if this is a good option or if I need to source something else from elsewhere.

Thanks

myheaven · #2 01/31/14, 08:38 PM

Never mind

SpaceCadet12364 · #3 01/31/14, 08:40 PM

Sounds like what they sell here as farm feed. That should work just fine. Some feed stores will custom blend around here if you buy a ton. But that should be fine with good quality Hay and Minerals they should stay fat and happy.

CIW · #4 01/31/14, 11:09 PM

That sounds like a maintenance ration with a little higher protein.
At 7 to 9 months all I would be doing is trying to grow structure not put any meat on them. You don't do that with a grain ration. But I don't know what your hay situation is. If you are running shy it could work as a hay stretcher.

weendogmom · #5 02/01/14, 08:10 AM

We have lots of hay, but I'm not sure of the quality. It's from the summer before last, and is decent field hay. The guy we got it from said our cows would love it. I don't know what that means. But I do know it's not planted with a bunch of clover or alfalfa. We give it to everyone, donkey, mini-horse, and two goats. The goats are the pickiest, horses eat every bit, cows are in the middle - or just messy, I'm not sure.

Like I mentioned before, we don't give them much. 2 lbs a day at most.

If they are in the barn due to very bad weather (low windchill, freezing rain), they get fed 1 lb in the morning and 1 lb at night, hay all day. If they are out in the pasture with their run in, they get free choice hay. We don't bring them grain at all, but I was considering starting to bring them a bucket once a day with 1 lb in it.

Plan is to let them eat up lots of grass this summer, and then in the fall, up the grain on the holstein to fatten him up for a December 18-20 month butcher. I know he won't be full size, but he will be bigger than the other (2nd steer is a Jersey), and I don't want to keep him for a second winter at that point. They will be eating too much hay at that size.

myheaven · #6 02/01/14, 08:28 AM

What is the levels of your calf grain?
I know this winter has been very hard and feeding has gotten way expensive. I have spent close to double this winter feeding my girls and steer. We are close to the end of winter and pasture will be ready in the next 3.5 months by me. We have had -57 here. Ugg.
You could possibly boost protein and go with a cheaper grain if you get a better hay. But you have to weigh the costs.
I say if the system is working. Finish out till spring then switch. I would assume your hay has lost a goo deal of its nutrition. With it being so old and not knowing how it was stored.

Wanda · #7 02/01/14, 08:52 AM

You need to have your hay tested for feed value. Without that as a baseline no body can give you an accurate answer. Check with your county ag adviser or local feed mill and they can tell you where to send the samples.

sammyd · #8 02/02/14, 07:36 AM

We usually go down to a couple pounds of 14% grain while they grow with all the decent pasture or hay they can get in themselves.
As for fattening lay off the grain and go to straight cracked corn along with some hay. Or there are pellets that the mill can make or get that allow you to feed straight whole shell corn and the steers will really fatten out well. The pellets are sold under a trade name of Tend R Leen in some areas.
As for the heifer you don't want her overconditioned, she should not take part in the straight corn diet,or any high grain diet while dry. You can start adding grain a couple of weeks before she freshens though.
You hay is not old at all and I would not worry a bit about any nutritional loss if it was baled and stored properly. Most you should lose would be a bit of vitamin A but adding grain to the ration offsets that easily.

Wanda · #9 02/02/14, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sammyd

We usually go down to a couple pounds of 14% grain while they grow with all the decent pasture or hay they can get in themselves.
As for fattening lay off the grain and go to straight cracked corn along with some hay. Or there are pellets that the mill can make or get that allow you to feed straight whole shell corn and the steers will really fatten out well. The pellets are sold under a trade name of Tend R Leen in some areas.
As for the heifer you don't want her overconditioned, she should not take part in the straight corn diet,or any high grain diet while dry. You can start adding grain a couple of weeks before she freshens though.
You hay is not old at all and I would not worry a bit about any nutritional loss if it was baled and stored properly. Most you should lose would be a bit of vitamin A but adding grain to the ration offsets that easily.

I would not be worried about the age of the hay but not all hay is the same. Depending on the grass that was baled there can be vast difference s in the nutritional value. We would not buy bagged feed if it did not list protein ect. Your hay is the most important part of your program so you should not be making a guess as to the nutrient content which can very by wide margins. Feeding some dry beef cows to maintain condition is much different than growing and developing young stock.

oneokie · #10 02/02/14, 12:02 PM

In my area, a "fitting ration" is fed to animals destined for livestock shows.

As was mentioned, contact your local extension service for information on what kind of supplement feed would best fit your situation.

goodhors · #11 02/02/14, 12:35 PM

Unmentioned is wet beet pulp if you can get it. This is an excellent cattle feed, puts a lot of fill and bloom on them without the heavy grain ration. Beets are the leftovers from sugar production, sugar beets that have all the sugar squeezed out, just this fiber left. They chop the fiber, dry it in shreds or pellets, sell it as animal feed.

I say to ALWAYS feed it wet, to prevent digestive problems. The shreds get fully hydrated much faster than the pellets, but locally shreds cost a lot more. I feed the pelleted form, wetted for several hours first. We use hot water to wet it in winter, does help it swell up faster. With the water added, the beet pulp swells up INCREDIBLY, making quite a volume of food from a small amount of pellets. And despite other folks practices, I would NEVER consider feeding beet pulp dry. With the horses, dry shreds have caused choke, colic, in spite of one woman's DVM study that showed no issues. We KNOW the horses who got sick or died, eating those dry shreds because owner decided feeding it wet was "too much work".

I watch my 7 measuring cups of dried beet pulp pellets added to water in a bucket turn into 3 gallons every day, is not something I want happening inside the animals!

Proportions of water to shreds is about 50-50, while the pelleted type is almost 3 parts water to 1 part pellets. Run your hands thru the mix, should be soft and wet all the way thru. No lumps in the pellet mix. May take some experimenting for you on proportions and some animals like it drier or love it sloppy wet. I make water lines on the bucket!!

I feed the wet beet pulp mostly to the horses, but our calves all LOVED their wet beet pulp every day. You can build them up to eating larger quantities over time. It is quite filling, helps as a forage food, adds water to the animal to keep them well hydrated in winter. We mixed the grain in with the wet beet pulp for the cattle.

If you can get the beet pulp to feed it, this might be a real helpful additive to the calves diet, and may be less expensive than grain feed. Animals would be adding meat over fat from corn, so growing more correctly than feedlot type animals with so much grain in their diets. I am not a big fan of commercial feed mixes, because of all the "odds and ends" they toss in along with molasses to get the cattle or horses to eat it. I don't like feeding sugar and misc. to my future food!

We have found feeding is more economical to just buy plain grains, a combination of oats, cracked corn, soybean meal, have it mixed to feed the animals. We feed this same mix to the horses and sheep, calves when we have them. Minerals are fed to each individual with their serving, so they get the right amount. All our animals have done well on this kind of ration, along with the WET beet pulp.

Another bonus, is if you can get a better price by the ton, storing the bags doesn't create a rodent problem. When we purchased the beet pulp by the ton, there were no holes chewed in the bags or animals living in the piled bags. This was still true even with long storage times as we slowly used it up.