carlsoncl - 12/7/2018 22:17 Now Jeff, You know there's "Iowa" green and then there's western runnin out green. Gaining 2.7/day will get a calf butterball fat, 1.5/day max in a 100 acre trap getting some feed through a processor along with salt and mineral until green up then sent to grass for 90 days makes a western green 9 wt. come Aug 1. Oh, I know that! I was just letting him know what a 44-46 NEg ration would do. This is why we background to about 750 and we do it on a 38-40 NEg shooting for about 2.25 ADG.
The trade off when going down to a 1.5 ADG is a higher cost of gain, so you need to get a lot of premium for the feeder. For better or worse, buyers at Eastern Iowa salebarns seem to think fleshier calves are healthier and will start easier and there seems to be no premium on green feeders so we go for more gain in less days. | 
Neg for backgrounding calves.
