New to showing steers. Need some advice

[ldkgates]

My daughter is showing a steer in our fair in October. We have a couple of questions. First, her steer has a wart on his forehead. He has rubbed it on a post and rubbed part of it off. It is flat against his head now so nothing really to grab to try and pull it off. Will it go away on its own or do we need to call the vet out? Second, we have feeding questions.
  The steer was about 500 pounds when we bought him the end of November. We havie been feeding him Southern States Bull Test. It is pretty much the only show type feed I can find around here. He gets 9 pounds a day and is not finishing it all. He has really slowed down his eating with the hot weather. He has a large run in stall with a fan that is on 24/7. He has access to pasture 24/7 but spends most of the day in the stall. He also has free choice coastal hay. We feed early in the evening and late at night. He is hosed off 2-3 times a day.
    I used a weight tape to try and see what his current weight is. I am not sure how to read it since I do not know how to tell what their body condition is. If I read it at moderate it says he is 772 pounds. If this is correct he has been gaining about 45.3 pounds a month. Is this good,bad, average? He is a club calf. I will try and post pictures once I get a good side view.
Thank you for any advice.

 

[FlatlandCattle09]

Calf should get between 2 and 3 percent of his body weight. Most shows don't allow warts. Calves should start gaining 3 pounds a day or so.

 

[SlickTxMaine]

I would pull him off pasture.  You want him eating as much of a finishing ration as you can get him to eat.  I am not familiar with your feed, but the name suggests it may be a grower ration, and not a finisher.  You may need to switch feeds, or add some fat, such as barley or my favorite; Stabilized Rice Bran.  Get a good weight and post a pic.  You need to be weighing him at least monthly, if not more often to monitor his gain.  From now until October he's gonna have to start putting the groceries away to be finished in time.  Maybe if someone is familiar with that feed, they can provide more info; protein, fat % etc.  Good luck!

 

[Ms Ray]

I would pull him off pasture or least limit it to night if he is around 700 he should be eating at least 15-18 lbs a day, and give him 1/2-1 flake of hay a feeding.  There are different things to give him to get him to eat more. 
our fair is the first week of October and we aim to be around 950 pounds around now, but each steer is different,  Post a picture so we can see body type.

We use a weigh tape make sure to have his head up and tape before feeding.  I make my own calculation between the 2 middle numbers and that has been fairly acurate for me. 

Good Luck

 

[bim1986]

Just one wart?  The old adage is to cut it off and feed it to them which will rid other warts and prevent new ones.

 

[5PCC]

I agree...it sounds like a breeder/grower ration instead of a finishing ration. You could add extra corn to it to make it "hotter", but you still want it to be a balanced ration. You don't want to add too much extra corn all at once either. Do you have a Livestock Specialist at your local Extension Office that can help you or an area FFA Advisor?

Do you have a local feed mill that can mix you up a ration? We mix up 1,000 to 2,000 pounds for the steers and the same for the heifers at a time. But most mills can do as little as 500 pounds at a time, if you don't have room for more or are worried about freshness. They should be able to help you create a feed ration with whatever commodities are available in your area, like cracked corn, oats, cottonseed hulls, etc.

Has the steer been wormed lately? I disagree about limiting his hay. He needs it to keep his gut going. My steers (and heifers) have free access hay and are gaining 3.5 pounds per day. (They are also eating around 33 pounds of grain per day.) Don't give them the good stuff like alfalfa, just give them some grass hay.

That's just my opinion. It's what works for us. Good luck!

 

[5PCC]

A dose of Probiotics wouldn't hurt either.

 

[ldkgates]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions so far. I will post pictures tomorrow. So in the last week we have body clipped the steer and have tweaked his feed some. We bought a show ration from the local feed mill and have added some purina finishing touch to it. We have given him 3 days of probiotics. He has picked up on his eating some. He was dewormed last week with Cydectin pour on. The vet will be out on Wed. To take care of the wart. He still is not eating as much as he needs to but hopefully we are headed the right direction.

 

[ldkgates]

Hope this picture works. Not very good because he was flowing me.

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I think he may have a respiratory issue. This morning he was coughing some and had a slighly milky discharge from his nose but not much. His temp was 102.