Paul Beck on Supplementing Wheat Pasture Stockers

Weekly, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Nutrition Specialist Paul Beck offers his expertise on the beef cattle industry. This is part of the weekly series known as the “Cow Calf Corner,” published electronically by Dr. Derrell Peel, Mark Johnson, and Beck. Today, he talks about supplementing wheat pasture calves.

In a past article (Cow-Calf Corner Newsletter, November 25, 2024; https://extension.okstate.edu/programs/beef-extension/cow-calf-corner-the-newsletter-archives/2024/november-25-2024.html)  I mentioned that it requires about 5 pounds of wheat forage dry matter (DM) per pound of calf bodyweight at the start of grazing to maximize steer performance. This forage allowance (the pounds of forage DM per pound of steer bodyweight) should result in gains throughout the fall and winter of over 2.5 pounds of gain under normal conditions. For example, to maximize performance of growing 500-pound calf we need to have 2,500 pounds of forage DM per steer. With a normal stocking rate of 2 acres per steer, this is 1,200 to 1,300 pounds of forage DM per acre. (A good thick stand of wheat pasture should be about 6 to 7 inches tall at 1,200 to 1,300 pounds per acre).

If we are slightly overstocked or have less forage available due to poor wheat growing conditions, forage allowance of 3 pounds can provide enough forage for about 2.5 pounds of gain per day. We can increase performance by feeding a small package energy supplement at 2 pounds per day (5.8 pounds/calf 3 days per week) to the growing calves, increasing gain by 0.5 pounds per day. This supplement should provide digestible energy and does not need to be high in protein because of the high protein content of the wheat forage. The supplement can be composed of grains (ground corn or milo work great) and digestible grain milling products with low protein content (soybean hulls and wheat midds), but we can provide extra protein with feeds like corn gluten feed or dried distillers grains if they are competitively priced on an energy basis. We often design these supplements to carry required minerals (calcium and magnesium are often deficient in wheat pasture) and monensin (100 to 200 mg/calf/day), an ionophore that will increase daily gains and reduce the incidence and severity of potential bloat. (Monensin is highly toxic to dogs and horses so care should be taken in storage and feeding feeds containing monensin to keep out of reach of non-targeted animals.) Research at OSU has shown that providing a free-choice complete mineral designed for grazing cattle on wheat pasture along with the energy supplement is as effective as feeding it in a complete package.

If wheat pasture is short but we need to keep the same stocking rate we have in the past, we can maintain stocking rates with higher supplementation rates or other feeding methods to offset the reduced availability of wheat pasture and low forage intake. This will be the topic for my article next week.

Paul Beck explains how to estimate the number of cattle to stock on wheat pasture on SunUpTV from November 26, 2018 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7swrHd0xbc

Verified by MonsterInsights