Feeding question

[misty]

My son has two steers he is feeding.  One is a heatwave for his 4-H project and the other is out of an Ali PB maine heifer; Sitz angus bull for the FFA chapter.
The Heatwave is short and puggy and the FFA steer is getting taller by the day.  One of the feed stores in town was generous enough to donate feed
for the FFA steer it is a show feed they are developing.  He is on the grower now and we were going to change him to the finisher because he is getting
so tall.  When I talked to the store about the finisher I found out it is the same as the grower except for the amount of minerals is less in the finisher.  The feed is
16% protein, 6% fat, and a mix of about even amounts of corn, oats and barley.  He is only getting 10 lbs a day now but will be increasing after weigh in the first week in Feb. our fair is the 1st week of Sept.  My question is will this feed get him to finish without getting too tall or him weighing 1400 lbs and still not finished.
Here are a couple of pictures of the steers the first one is of both of them with the heatwave in front and the second is the FFA steer.

 

[Bradenh]

find something without a whole bunch of oats (oats add frame). and get him fat fat fat. fattest feed you can find, and if you get him fat enough it will stunt his growth and thats what you want. we have a yellowjacket that we are trying to stop his growth and its working with the more fat you add.

 

[showsteerdlux]

One thing that is making him grow so tall is that protein. I would feel pretty comfortable to cut that down to 12-13% keeping the fat around the same. Cut the protein, and you won't have a problem IMHO.

 

[misty]

If I added say 20% corn to the feed we are getting would that cut down the protein enough?  Since we are getting the feed donated we still want to use
it as the base.  I would like to try to convince the feed store to modify their finisher ration but there are other people who have been raising club calves
for a long time that are advising them.  I guess this will be a good feed for the heatwave steer we have that doesn't want to grow at all.

 

[showsteerdlux]

If I added say 20% corn to the feed we are getting would that cut down the protein enough?  Since we are getting the feed donated we still want to use
it as the base.  I would like to try to convince the feed store to modify their finisher ration but there are other people who have been raising club calves
for a long time that are advising them.  I guess this will be a good feed for the heatwave steer we have that doesn't want to grow at all.

This would help some, but if you got it up to say 30%, it would be to your advantage. Another thing you could add that is typically cheap is soy hull pellets. You can normally get those for around $200/ton.

 

[misty]

Thank you for your help.  We can not get ahold of soy hull pellets in our part of the country can you use beet pulp pellets instead?

 

[GONEWEST]

First,  finisher and grower can't be the same minus some minerals.

Second, I don't know what they weigh now but Sept is a long time off. Don't know that you should be worried about finish on the smaller one now unless you are trying to compensate for a period in the summer when you anticipate a lower feed intake.

Third, animals have a hard time handling a feed with anymore than 5% fat. It causes them not to be able to use the other nutrients you are feeding. The nutrition will go right out the back with the rest of the loose stool.

Four, 16% Protein is too high for anything other than a pre or just weaned calf.

Five, Oats are 4% fat. It is a complete and common fallacy that oats will ad to frame and cattle will not get fat on oats. The reason that corn and barley are better at putting condition on is because they are higher in CARBS not fat. Just as in people, carbs will get you fat.

Six,  to get the protein levels down to about 13% using that 16% feed as a base you are going to have to replace 50% of the ration with corn, assuming the corn is 9.8% protein. If the ration is made up of Corn Oats And Barley there has to be something else in there to get the protein up to 16%. However since over half the protein in corn is by-pass protein, when using finishing rations that have that much corn in them it is wise to keep the protein content nearer 14-14.5 % using another source of protein such as cottonseed or soybean meal to keep the level of rumen degradable protein up. So if you're going to cut it with corn only, you shouldn't cut it down to 12 or 13%.

 

[misty]

Thank you Gonewest for the really good info.  The grower and finisher thing was the same thought I had didn't seem right.  I'm not worried about the smaller
steer he needs to grow as much as possible but the other one is getting taller all the time and is really green.  The high fat doesn't seem to bother them their
stools are not at all loose might change with higher amounts of feed.  30% of the feed is a protein (soybean meal), vitamin,mineral pellet to get the feed up
to 16% protein.  I am going to talk to the feed store about changing their finisher and the information you guys have given me will help alot.  Right now all
the feed store has are grower type feeds.