pasture - day or night?

[ffamom50]

:-\

My daughter has a show steer that is right at 950# and show isn't until Sept.  We need to keep his weight in check and have been advised to put him in the pasture for awhile and feed once a day.  He as well has a tendency to bloat every so often.  Couple of questions.

1.  Should we put him out at night or day or does it really matter?

2.  Is baking soda the best "preventative" for bloating?  We have a bloat block in his pen, but he won't touch it.  he did at first, but has backed off it now.  Stupid ?, but do they go bad per say? It seems to have gotten wet ithe nightly dew.  We have as well been told you can scrape it off and add to feed. 

Thanks for helping out this novice mom.. 

 

[Bradenh]

i think you could turn him out full time for 30 days (on grass and hay) and then pick him back up and regroup and push to your fair. thats what we did with my american calf and hes going to still go in at 1440 ish in june but it cuts weight back alot. also if you do keep him on feed it doesnt matter how much you feed him as long as it is a little bit (feed intake weight is feed intake weight on a held calf regardless of how much you feed him). i dont know much about a calf and preventing bloat because thankfully ive hever had one with the problem. . . but hope this helps. just either go very slow with feed from here out. or turn him out and relax for a couple months and pick him up later and push him (to me pushing one is much easier that holding one) jMO

 

[vc]

As far as pasture goes day and night, I would continue to bring him in and work him daily. I would also track his weight weekly during that the time he is out there. If you are going to grain him I would do it twice a day with half the ration, this way when you try and bring him back on feed it is easier. Since he bloats take your time bringing him back on feed.

Backing soda works. We had a steer that started bloating every once and a while (his first bloat involved the vet a tube and half a gallon of mineral oil), we found if we fed him half a flake of coarse hay prior to his feed he did not bloat.This may or may not work but it is worth a try. I think it helped him digest the feed if his gut got started on the hay first.

 

[ffamom50]

Thannk you both!  We are in a school barn so my daughter can bring him in after school, work wtih him and the feed.  We try the baking soda.  We do have a bloat block in his pen but he won't touch it.  Kinda stubborn.. lol!

 

[lcc10]

If you show with hair you want to keep him in during the day cuz the sunlight causes hair to fall out . otherwise kick him out during the day and at night cuz the hotter he is the less weight he will gain