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 provides information on Supplementation Rates for Stocker Calves Grazing Summer Pasture.
In our last article, we discussed why summer supplementation is essential for stocker calves grazing native or introduced pastures. This article will focus on the effects of supplementation rate on stocker calf performance and supplementation efficiency.
Recent research at Oklahoma State University has evaluated varying rates of supplementation using extruded dried distillers grains (DDGS) cubes on summer native range pasture. The performance of steers grazing native range over a two-year trial at two locations in western Oklahoma—the Marvin Klemme Range Research Station near Bessie, OK, and the USDA-ARS Southern Plains Experimental Range near Ft. Supply, OK—under increasing rates of supplemental extruded DDGS cubes is shown in the table below.
Results show a clear linear improvement in weight gain with increasing supplementation rate up to a certain point. However, as supplementation rate increases, the marginal response decreases.
Table 1. Performance of Grazing Stocker Steers Grazing Native Range Pastures in Western Oklahoma with Increasing Supplementation Rates of Extruded Dried Distiller’s Grain Cubes
Feeding 2 pounds of supplement per day increased average daily gain by more than 0.5 lbs/day, requiring only 3.6 pounds of supplement per pound of added gain. At higher supplementation rates, the marginal increase in performance was smaller. Feeding 4 pounds per day increased gains by only 0.26 lbs/day over calves not receiving supplements, requiring 4.9 pounds of supplement per pound of added gain. Feeding 6 pounds per day increased gain by 1.03 lbs/day but required almost 6 pounds of supplement for each pound of additional gain.
Key Takeaways: Higher supplementation rates increased average daily gain, but efficiency decreased at higher rates. The cost of supplementation must be weighed against the value of added gain to ensure the program is economically viable. Next week, we will look at some general guidelines I use for designing supplementation programs.
