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Breckenridge, MI | You had asked about the feed conversion on our silage ration and I finally got a chance to add up the totals for the first pen of this year (38 steers, 100% sale barn origin). These cattle were bought from Oct 5 to Oct 9 at an average pay-in weight of 554. They were on our arrival ration (hand fed 50/50 hay & concentrate) until their booster on Nov 9 when they averaged 618# (1.89 adg from pay weight). After the booster we put them on the back grounding ration which is (as fed) 3# DDGs, 0.5# Balancer Mineral, and as much corn silage as they will clean up in a day. We gave terminal implants on Feb 24 and the average weight was 948# (3.08 adg from booster, 2.79 adg from pay weight).
So to answer your question on feed conversion here are the numbers from November 9th through February 24th.
As Fed . . . . . . Dry Matter
Corn Silage . . 117,087 . . 34% . . 39,809.6
DDGs . . . . . . . . 14,158 . . 88% . . 12,459.0
Mineral . . . . . . . 2,325 . . 99% . . 2,301.8
So total dry matter intake was 54,570.4#.
Gain was:
11-9-17 23,500 pen wt / 38 head
2-24-18 34,133 pen wt / 36 head (2 deads)
So pen gain for the period was 10,663#
So the total dry matter F:G was 5.118
For what it's worth we plan to ship this group at the end of June (~120 days on the finish ration) and I hope to see the ship weights around 1,405 (1,350 pay weight).
I hope this long winded and probably confusing post answered your questions but feel free to ask more | |
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Jimsonweed - Silage Backgrounding F:G
