Talking Cattle! How Much do you Feed these Things???

how's it going guys and welcome to today's video I woke up this morning and I just couldn't help but think that there was something different outside I don't know it's like the weather or something yes finally it is raining out here and despite the fact that the weather is cold and wet and muddy the chores still need to be done on the ranch I thought today would be a good day to take you guys with me as I feed it all the cows in the majors check on the calves to see how they're doing and talk about how much I feed each different group of animal why I feed them not much when I feed them and all the stuff involved in feeding these cattle that's what we're talking about today on farmer Tyler ranch [Music] every day when I get to the ranch to feed cows I always start here at the big manger with the adult cow herd there's really no rhyme or reason for this other than this is the manger that I park next to and when I get out of my truck they see me so I kind of feel obligated to feed them first anyway well let me get the bails set out up here and ready to feed and we'll talk a little bit more about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it [Music] [Music] I have 35 adult cows at this manger and there's a couple things that I need to consider when I think about how much to feed them the first thing that you need to consider is what stage of life are the animals in a cattle feed requirements will be highest when she's lactating or her last three months before giving birth now my cows are not in either one of those stages in fact the stage that they're in right now their feed requirements are probably at their lowest because they just have the calves pulled off of them so they're not lactating anymore and they've still got a good four to five months before calving there are other factors that play into it as well what is the weather like for instance when the weather is cold cattle need more feed to help maintain their body temperature if we were in the middle of July and it was really hot I could probably get away with feeding them a lot less but since we're right in the middle of winter and probably going to be seeing our coldest months here in the next two or three months I probably don't want to do minimum requirements I probably will want to bump them up just a little bit I've heard a lot of different ideas over the years about how to figure out how many pounds of hay to give the animals and I think everything is kind of based on environment and specific herds the number that I found works good for me is about 20 pounds of hay per head per day why do I say that works good well I'm basing that just off of body condition and just sort of overall wellness of the animal the other thing that I should know is that if it gets significantly colder or as we get closer to calving I'll make adjustments to account for that these girls are getting a little bit antsy because they hear me up here talking and I think they're kind of wondering why I haven't started feeding them yet so I'm going to go ahead and get them fed and we'll talk a little bit more [Music] now we've talks a little bit about the amount and before I go any further I should probably mention that when I'm talking about these things you know you have to start with a good quality feed I'm feeding what's called forage mix it's a mixture of oats wheat and barley and the protein on that is about ten to twelve percent just depending on the year so it's not an insanely high amount of protein like alfalfa or something like that would offer but it's definitely enough to keep these girls at their maintenance levels so we've talked about what the adult cows get but what about the weaned calves that's a little bit of a different story so let me load up the tractor and let's run down there and talk about it to your regular subscribers I'll probably sound like a broken record now but I figure there's new people coming to the channel all the time so it's worth mentioning again these small bills that I feed are three twine bales that weigh about well when I Bale them I aim for a hundred pounds but a lot of times they end up weighing about 105 to 110 pounds so we figure it's right in there somewhere the reason that I bring it up is because I don't believe I've ever seen another place that makes small squares like this it seems like whenever other people are making small square bales there to twine about I don't know what those two twins are sixty maybe eighty pounds so these are a little bit bigger and I just like to point that out because it is something a little bit different as for why we feed these out here I really don't know that's what the market demands mostly the retail hay market in this area is for horse customers and boarding stables these are the bills that they want so when I'm growing a crop of hay and I know that I'm going to end up selling some of it I got it I kind of got to meet the demand of what the market asks for right now this is it you guys have heard me mentioned before that one day I would like to at least entertain the idea of converting over to round bales and that is something that I'm thinking about more and more I really do need to test the waters out here though because I'm not sure that I'd be able to sell round bales because round bales are very uncommon in this area I think most people wouldn't know what to do with them now as I'm sure you guys can hear I'm guessing a microphone is picking it up but it is raining right now and down there where the little manger is where the calves are at I really have no cover or anywhere to put my camera gear where it won't get wet so what I think I'm going to do is leave my main camera here we'll film all that down there with the GoPro and I'll just do a voice over to kind of let you guys know what's going on well let's see if the old for it will fire up and we'll head on down there [Music] biggest difference between feeding the cows and the calves are the goals that I'm trying to achieve here with the cows I'm just really trying to hit nutritive requirements make sure that they can maintain body condition and stay happy and healthy but I'm really not trying to add any weight to them the calves on the other hand are pretty much the exact opposite of that I want them to gain weight and I want them to grow so while I may have the cows ration figured out right down to the pound the calves are a little bit more up in the air and basically the strategy here is feed them as much as they're gonna [Music] Hank the horse seats in here with these calves and believe it or not he's actually the boss of this major when he's up eating he gets plenty of room and nobody tries to mess with him [Music] at this manger I've got 36 calves for butcher steers and like I said I've got the one horse now based off of what I know from feeding the stairs by themselves my guess is that they're probably consuming about 25 pounds each per day I'm thinking ol Hank probably eats about 20 pounds himself and if my math is right that means those calves are getting around 10 pounds of piece but like I said before I'm really not so concerned with how many pounds each animal is eating per day I'm really more concerned with whether or not they're eating all that they want per day now the way that I can sort of monitor and decide if I'm doing this right is the next morning when I look in the manger I want to see a little bit of hay left behind from the day before this tells me that the animals need all they wanted and they were so full that they felt fine turning their nose up and leaving a little bit in the major [Music] these calves get bigger they'll continue to eat more and more each day but as long as I feed them with the same strategy then I know that I'm never shorting them on feed my plan is to sell these calves in January or maybe February just sort of depending on what the weather's doing and how the feeds hold mouths and I would like to see the average weight be around 650 or maybe even 700 pounds I think if I keep pushing the feet at them like this we can get there [Music] well that is how I do things out here I'm not saying it's the right way I'm not saying it's the only way but that's the way that works for me thanks for hanging out at the ranch with me today guys and I hope I'll see you again on farmer Tyler ranch [Music]

Channel: Farmer Tyler Ranch

Views: 101,274

Rating: 4.9485688 out of 5

Keywords: talking cattle, farmer tyler ranch, feeding cows, how to feed cows, how much to feed a cow, how much does a cow eat

Id: RJVxDYOJ3u8

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 05 2019