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NE Oklahoma | Thinking about chopping some corn for corn silage to feed to weaned calves weighing 500-600 lbs , have vertical mixer and haylage bales, don't know what would be a good mix or not messing with the corn silage and stick with the haylage bales. Thanks |
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western iowa,by Denison | 4j farms always has good advice-maybe he will help out. And beef biz
lots of advice on google from other sources -and corn silage works great once they get use to it |
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Breckenridge, MI | We feed 3 lbs DDGs, 0.6 lbs co-product balancer, and as much corn silage as they will clean up from 4-500 lbs up to 900 lbs. They gain 2.75-3 lbs/day and will get a little fleshy but if you're owning them through finish it won't hurt. We still get 3.9 to 4# adg on steers from 900# to 13-1400# with our finish ration. If you're going to sell them before they're finished maybe mix in some haylage to lower the energy. Maybe 50/50 like a dairy ration? I'm not sure on that one. |
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all over Iowa | I think corn silage is an outstanding feedstuff. A great mix of energy and roughage, and returns a lot of dollars to your corn acres (just make sure to put manure where you chop to replace nutrients in the stalks).
I would like to use the balage as part of the ration, but not as the base of the ration. Depending on how much alfalfa is in your balage, you could very easily overfeed protein and underfeed energy if this was your primary roughage - you would definitely have to blend some grain with it to get decent gains.
To tell you what to feed, your local feed nutritionist would need to know the nutrient tests on the balage (because it is extremely variable farm to farm) and he would need to know what your goals are for your calves - how big do you want to get them, and are you finishing them or selling them as feeders? With that info, then a ration can be balanced for the right energy and protein levels to meet your needs. If you have some good protein in the balage, a simple blend of corn silage and balage (along with something to bring in supplemental minerals and ionophore) could very easily give you a 2-2.5 gain or more. What that blend is depends on if your balage is 12% protein or 18% protein. |
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Western Iowa | I feed corn silage to calves that size mixed with ground alfalfa and DDG's. I can't use wet as I don't feed enough head to stay ahead of spoilage. Silage has enough moisture to use the DDG easy enough anyway.
Don't quote me exactly, but IIRC was running about 3-4lb DDG and 6-8lb head of ground alfalfa, balance silage per day.
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NE Oklahoma | Beefbiz - 6/19/2017 08:06
I think corn silage is an outstanding feedstuff. A great mix of energy and roughage, and returns a lot of dollars to your corn acres (just make sure to put manure where you chop to replace nutrients in the stalks).
I would like to use the balage as part of the ration, but not as the base of the ration. Depending on how much alfalfa is in your balage, you could very easily overfeed protein and underfeed energy if this was your primary roughage - you would definitely have to blend some grain with it to get decent gains.
To tell you what to feed, your local feed nutritionist would need to know the nutrient tests on the balage (because it is extremely variable farm to farm) and he would need to know what your goals are for your calves - how big do you want to get them, and are you finishing them or selling them as feeders? With that info, then a ration can be balanced for the right energy and protein levels to meet your needs. If you have some good protein in the balage, a simple blend of corn silage and balage (along with something to bring in supplemental minerals and ionophore) could very easily give you a 2-2.5 gain or more. What that blend is depends on if your balage is 12% protein or 18% protein.
Thanks for all the info, my balage bales are grass hay, some bermuda, 5-10% protein |
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all over Iowa | Thanks Cobb,
In that case you will need a supplement or some DDGs to go with the hay and silage to get enough protein to support gains.
I just did a rough ration, and if the hay is 7% protein you could feed the corn silage and balage 50/50 (all they'll eat) plus 5# of DDGs and .5-.75# of a balancer to support 2.25# of daily gain. Or 50/50 and 2.5# of a 40% supplement for the same gain. |
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| Cobb - 6/19/2017 09:34
Thanks for all the info, my balage bales are grass hay, some bermuda, 5-10% protein
Not to steal your thread but, why mess with balage in your only hitting 10% protein? |
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NE Oklahoma | Mainly to get the hay off early between all the rains and to have less spoilage, think it will make better feed once I run it through my vertical mixer |
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Feed ration help need
