Tallcool1 I have a question for you

[DaveK]

This is from a post you made in 2014.

"We have gotten a little tired of spending so much money on show feed too. We decided to do a throwback ration this year.  We are feeding ground ear corn, a protein pellet, and hay.  No sweetener, no precon, no hulls, no liquidt fat, nothing else.  We have always been above average feeders, but this ration is unbelievable!

They love it, and clean it all up includding the husks.  Purre energy.."



Can you grow and keep hair,  feeding ear corn and a protein pellet?  I have lots of ear corn
this year and am thinking about doing this.

 

[Tallcool1]

We had no problem with hair.  In fact, the year that we started doing that was the best hair we had ever put on our fat steers.  I don't think that the ration had anything to do with them having good hair.  There are way too many variables to draw that assumption.

With feeding ground ear corn there is so much roughage that we wouldn't have actually needed to feed any hay.  We just do to make sure that they have plenty of middle, and the hay helps keep their digestive system cooled down a little.

Once they get pretty much fat (June 1st for a Mid July Fair), we tame their ration way down.  About 50/50 Receiving Chow to ground ear corn.  That is probably the biggest factor to getting hair on them.

I hope I answered your question.

 

[DaveK]

I was thinking it might be to much corn.  What receiving chow did you use? Precon?

One more question for anybody else reading this. 

Would you push the steer hard now? Our fair is not until early August.  The steer weighs 620.

 

[Tallcool1]

Yes, Purina Precon.

We do not have a minimum daily gain requirement any more, so we just pour it to em.  For us, it is just so much easier to slow them down than it is to speed them up.  Once summer hits, they slow down even in the cooler. 

We basically try to buy cattle that are going to just make it by our county fair which is early July, and then anything we take on to State Fair we just coast for 6 weeks. 

 

[Auburnviewfarms]

Our fair is early August also and we push late April early May steers all the way to the end. Easier to push early and coast later like tallcool1 said.