lo weight steers.. think about it early

[jbzdad]

seems like there are frequent threads about lightweight steers this time of year..

.seems like if a steer weans at a modest 550 and is kept on good hay and about 15 pounds of a good grain ration he will weigh 1000 at about a year old and should  be able to finish with ease at 1250 by july

I just feed out some of the lo-end  for beef  or feed heifers to keep and we get to that spot pretty easy

It would seem to me some of these calves must be sorta "poor doing" from the  start..

what kind of steer weighs 450  lbs in sept when he is six months old? certainly none at my place!

I know it is easy to pick the best one off you or the neighbor and try to make that work but for the price of  market or market plus just a little you could easily find a steer that will finish at weight and be a project you can be proud of... The breeders call those "county fair steers".. 200 over market can buy them around here...

 

[CCW]

many suffer from high trough disease.

 

[jbzdad]

is that the same as not  enough in the  trough disease?

 

[vc]

I think he meant they are small framed and can't reach the trough. Some calves are destined to be great for jackpots steers but they will never reach the size to be fat steers they looked finished at 600 pounds. Others never really do good as calves in the jackpots but they make great fat steers and some excel at both. If your goal is a fat steer you need to pick calves that have some growth in them, they may not win allot at the jackpot level but you will have a respectable product in the end.

 

[CCW]

yep. same result. calves are behind b/c they haven't had enough feed 7 out of 10 times. Health issues and puds that don't grow are the rest of the reasons calves don't perform.

 

[rackranch]

Most of the time I get the feeling the feeders don't know what an ADG is.  I thought one of the fundamentals of feeding was to know your current weight, the number of days till show, and what ADG is needed or going to be for each steer on feed.  I don't know who is dropping the ball but there are a lot of  ''60 days left and my steer is to light'' post.  Showing and feeding is a family affair that takes someone in a leadership role to advise the younsters on how to care for their animals.  That being said, the blame can be placed on any number of people depending on the situation.

 

[vc]

Our club would weigh animals once a month, early on in the year it was calves by the last 3 months prior to the fair we spent a day weighing calves, pigs, lambs and goats. You would let the kids know if they were on track, if they needed to change feed, increase feed, hold an animal or really start pushing. the rest of the time the scale was available for them to use if they were really worried about an animals weight (pigs were weighed often near the fair. We kept the scale at our house so we would weigh every Sunday before we kicked the calves out, pretty easy to monitor ADG. I kept the weights on my phone makes it real easy to look back at their history that way.
If the animals are being weighed monthly it does not take to long to see if you have a problem, and gives you time to start working on correcting it.

 

[jbzdad]

This is my version of a county fair steer... home grown angus, Yellow jacket embryo didn't take ... this is a Whose whiskey ... clean up calf