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Ridgway, IL | I was going through my most recent kill sheets. It was a group of 97 steers, came in at 786lb in feb. They gained 3.1 lb per day pay wt to pay weight. Were on feed 181 days. They were sold on a grid. 63.8 yield. 50% choice. 40% select. 10% were no roll/dark cutter/commercial - "out cattle". Handful of cabs, handful of yg1's, handful of 4's. Zero health issues, no med expense, 1% death loss. I was really happy with the way they fed... this is the best I have been able to do in my short career cattle feeding, so im happy with that...
My question is, would it be considered atypical to have 10% out cattle? Or are there some management practices that I can implement to reduce that number? The discount for the out cattle is 55/cwt in the meat, so 10% of these reduced my rail price by 5.5/cwt... Is this environmental? Genetics? Feed related? a combination of all these things?
These were calves coming from a pre-conditioner. He buys 3 and 4 wt bulls and runs on grass and mineral.
At my place, they received no vaccs. They were put on a grower ration for a month before receiving their first implant (rev 200 by mistake), at day 120 they were given another rev 200... so I know that's not the most desirable implant strategy, I mis-understood the label. I use rev xs the most, but I was just trying something different with the rev 200. They were on a grower type ration for approx. 90 days, then really started stepping up the energy.
The rations were made up of dry "filler" hay, distillers syrup (ccds), wdg, and whole shell corn. We were running about 10% ccds, and 30% wdg inclusions. Also, I was never really able to get them worked up to a 62-63mcal ration. these were finishing in the summer time (mild for this area this year), and it seemed like every time I tried to push the corn to get up to that last 62-63mcal ration, their dmi would back off enough that I felt like I was sacrificing performance... so I just left them at the 60-61 ration.
My thought, is it is a combination of the genetics, the summer weather, the higher by-product ration, and the implant strategy, along with maybe not the highest energy ration? But I wondered if any others could offer any experience on how to better manage this?
Yield grades, and the % choice indicate that I could have fed them another week or 2 and potentially improved grade.... but im thinking that another couple weeks on feed wont do any good for dark cutter or a no roll??? Seems like that had been determined much earlier in the feed cycle by some other factor?
appreciate any comments. | |
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"Out Cattle" discussion
