Page 41 - MWC 2-3-2022s

STRETCHING ago, we used this research to The Midwest Cattleman · February 3, 2022 · P41
continued from page 37 keep calves on short wheat
pastures using round bale of forage per acre) that we per acre increased from 250
bermudagrass silage. Sever- stocked at 1.5 steers per for our ‘normal’ production
when feed prices are low to al of our fields had normal acre (forage allowance of 2.1 to 300 pounds per acre. This
moderate with costs of added forage yields of 2500 pounds pounds of forage per pound only took about 4.5 pounds of
gain around 50 to 75 cents of forage per acre, where we of steer) and fed free-choice silage dry matter per pound
per pound of added gain grazed during the fall and round bale bermudagrass si- of added gain per acre. Using
when feeds cost $150 to 200/ winter with 1 calf per acre lage (14% CP and 56% TDN) high quality, palatable hays
ton, but escalate to over $1/ with forage allowance of 4 weekly. or silages can stretch wheat
pound when feed prices are pounds of wheat per pound Even with higher stock- pastures when concentrate
$400/ton. of steer and had gains of 3.3 ing rates and less forage per feeds are expensive.
Although intake of low lbs/day. Other fields were acre these steers gained 2.6
quality roughages is not high planted later and only had pounds per day and total gain
enough to offset wheat forage 70% of normal (1800 pounds
intake and can reduce per-
formance of growing calves,
research has shown that of-
fering high quality rough-
ages such as corn silage or
sorghum silage or high qual-
ity round bale silages can be
used to replace short wheat
pasture or double stocking
rates on wheat pastures. In
the 1980’s research showed
that feeding silage daily to
calves on wheat pasture al-
lowed stocking rates to be in-
creased by up to 2X without
reducing steer performance.
When faced with short
wheat pastures on some re-
search fields a few years

Callaway

Livestock

Center, Inc.

On I-70, 4 miles east of
Kingdom City, MO on outer road

573-642-7486

Feeder Sale
Monday

12:30 p.m.

1st Thursday Night
of Each Month

6:00 p.m.
Special Cow Sale

Jack Harrison
573-386-2138

John P. Harrison

573-386-5150