Show steer needing to eat more

[Jay16]

Hi! I have a show steer who is currently 980 pounds, and needs to be 1050 by July 15th in order to make weight. I would prefer him to be 1100-1150, but with the way he’s going that’s not gonna happen. I have him on 22 total pounds of grain a day, along with 4 flakes of alfalfa. He gets 18 pounds of Showtime Beef Finisher and 4 pounds of rice bran pellets per day. He doesn’t want to eat his food though, and this week he didn’t gain any weight because I had to take him to a show practice, and he gained back his lost weight from the trailer but didn’t put any more on. I have tried mixing alfalfa with his grain, wetting it, putting it in a feeder on the ground and up on the fence, skipping feedings, and taking out the rice bran as it doesn’t smell particularly good and is kind of dusty. He was in a pen with my heifer and had free forage hay, but I had to lock him in a second smaller pen to feed him so the heifer didn’t eat his grain, and he doesn’t do well with a time limit. I moved him to a pen on the fence line with the heifer but he won’t eat in there either despite having all day with his grain. I’m just not quite sure what to do at this point, as I’ve never had a lightweight steer nor a calf that didn’t like to eat. He’s well built and not super skinny, (he could use some more finish on him but he’s got a decent amount of meat on his bones) he’s just smaller framed and doesn’t have the capacity to be super heavy. Is there anything else I could try adding to his grain that will make him want to eat it more, or anything else I could try that would increase his appetite?

 

[S_W]

Try adding liquid molasses as a top dressing on his grain.

Try not giving him any hay or alfalfa, just the grain. He'll get hungry enough to eat it and then they usually develop an appetite for it. If not, that was my steer last year, get another steer and put them in the same pen. If the new steer loves the grain, it will make yours jealous and eat. You may have to feed over double so that your steer eats enough with the other one. My carcass steer only eats if my market steer is eating grain.

Don't take the grain away at all, leave it out all day, and if he ate most of it, give him his next feeding on top of it.

I find that alfalfa is usually too rich and can upset their guts. Try feeding normal hay.

Try feeding only a little bit of hay at night so that he has finished most of it by morning. Then give him the grain and leave it out and give him hay in the afternoon maybe.