Weekly, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Nutrition Specialist Paul Beck offers his expertise on the beef cattle industry. This is a part of the weekly series known as the “Cow-Calf Corner.” Today, he talks about the close of the summer grazing trials at the Marvin Klemme Range Research Station.
Today we are pulling the stocker steers from experiments at the Oklahoma State University Marvin Klemme Range Research Station near Bessie (Southwest of Clinton). This year the project compared the extruded distiller’s grains cubes hand-fed at 2.5 pounds per calf per day to a self-fed extruded distiller’s grains tub supplement offered at the same feeding rate. The project was managed by graduate research assistant Paul Vining (also coordinator of the OSU OQBN preconditioning program) with help from Area Livestock Extension Specialist Marty New.
The early research at the station indicated that the economically optimal stocking rate is 5 acres per steer for growing calves through the summer. With drier weather patterns we decided to reduce the stocking rate by 40% to 7 acres per steer the last couple of years.
With over a month with no rain, we are closing out the trials this year in Extreme Drought. The Mesonet station at Klemme recorded 11.3 inches of precipitation in the last 6 months which is 6.8 inches less than the average since 1991. The last recorded rainfall of 1.46 inches in August allowed us to finish the grazing season without providing hay or hauling water.
Here are some pictures of activities with the stocker cattle trial this year.
Another experiment managed by James Pixley a graduate research assistant from the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management along with Laura Goodman and Sam Fuhlendorf is looking at using targeted mowing or managed burns to enhance grazing distribution for mature beef cows.
We are expecting some exciting results from both of these ongoing experiments, so stay tuned!
