The first off topic over there was what kind of hay to feed butcher cattle. My general answer is anything that will not make them sick. But it also depends if you want grass finished or grain fed. 

 The short course is cattle need ruffage in there diet, they are not made to eat grain only. That is why whole corn on the cob was considered so good in the old days. With just a little reading of the old time standard "FEEDS AND FEEDING" written by Morrison you can "balance" most anything a cow will eat. So real junk hay will be Ok, IF and only IF you add what is not in the junk hay. A lot of other hay eating animals are included as well.

 Many reasons the hay is in the junk category. It was cut to late or it was rained on after cutting are the most likely reasons. More or less the same condition. Some or most of the nutrients that where in the plant are gone. Many of sugars and amino acids that make proteins are water soluble. So rain "wash's" some of the good stuff away. In some cases almost all of it.

So add or ask about hay.   

Now I see a lot of farmers growing grasses and harvesting early because grasses respond better to large amounts of manure and cost inputs are considerably less than most legumes.

By the sounds of things, some of you guys probably wouldn't let my beef cross your palate!  Which is odd, because we get compliments all the time.  Not just from customers who have had nothing but Walmart prior, but from the slaughterhouse, from the meat market, from people who haven't had good farm raised beef "since they were a kid".

I don't say that with any contempt or conceit or right or wrong, just find it very interesting.  Here is "our way", which I guess is totally wrong.

For starters, the grain we grow/mix/feed.  Approximately 1/3 by volume oats, 2/3 shelled corn, 50 pounds of mineral blend, 50 pounds of Selenium salt, 150 pounds molasses.  This is in a ~ 2+ ton mixed batch.   We used to use ear corn, but the condition of the crib, the picker, etc. has put a stop to that. IF I have some really crappy hay, or decent wheat straw, I will put a few bales of that in and reduce the corn volume, but don't always have that on hand.  

From the time the calves are weaned, they get good hay, and are introduced to the above "grain" right away.  Just a couple handfuls twice a day and enough hay to chew on 'til their heart's content pretty much.  As time goes on, they get a little more and a little more of the grain, of course they are eating more hay too.  Never really bothered to calculate an exact ratio, but I'd say by the time they are 900+ pounds they are eating about 8 pounds of the grain per day, 4 pounds in the morning, 4 pounds at night.  Hay to munch on in between.  

I guess what constitutes "quality hay" is important here, and of course subjective.  I do plant alfalfa, but I've never planted a field of ONLY alfalfa, I always put other grass seed in with it.  Depending on the field, it might be some Timothy, Brome, Italian Rye, Tall Fescue....whatever.  And of course over the life of the field, the alfalfa diminishes.  But the calves, I try to give them the better stuff, be it younger crop, not rained on if at all possible, etc.  

I don't feed a whole lot of 2nd cutting to calves, otherwise they seem to really start projectile pooping.  

Over the years, I've fed pea/oat bales to calves/feeders/fats, I've fed corn silage if I have good supply.  If corn silage, that's once a day at night and then hay in the morning.  But no matter what of the above, always that grain.  Diet doesn't really change as they get older, just more of it.  Maybe I have a terribly unsophisticated palate, but I've never noticed a change in flavor.  

Our beef is always very tender.  I would think that may have to do with their facility.  They really don't have a lot of room.  I mean, not in an inhumane way, but these critters are in the barn for this whole process.  I've often thought about changing that....

If I increase the grain much over what I do, projectile pooping.  Give more than a few feedings of 2nd cutting per week, projectile pooping.  

Dad and I have talked all along, we could be totally wrong, but our theory was when a critter was "pushed for fat" the last couple hundred pounds, you get that layer of fat on the carcass, but it's not really all the way through so to speak.  

Had a steak birthday dinner, man were they delicious!

So at what age are they finished?

I want marbling (intra muscular  fat ) in my steak, I am not fussy about how you get them fat.  My wife on the other hand, she has complained about most game meat as being "gamey". She was out with friend in a high dollar steak place had a (a story for another day, she doesn't buy steak in a restaurant )burger. She did not like the burger it had the same "gameyness" as venison. The place was jumping on the "grass fed" trend that is the trendy thing yet. So she says just the grass fed taste she has always called "gameyness". So as best we can there will be no grass fed beef severed in my house.

I have been a use what you got guy. Growing up this was wheat and barley growing country. Most saved seed or traded with other farmers. So you had screenings from the seed cleaning, broken and shrunk crenels, weed seeds. This is the base of my cattle fatting feed, add other things to get the ration in balance varied by cost of other feed stuffs. I don't know of anyone that has ground and mixed their own feed, even when there where dairies all from a feed mill.

Once cattle get to eating a diet high in grain we put it in a self feeder and keep hay another feeder. Let them eat as much as they want. But you need to increase the grain gradually. We have let them get to much to quick, it delayed the whole process about a month.  

That's the difference too, . . . so even if my feed is cheaper (?), I sell my freezer beef in "batches" usually.  The first / best ones are ready at about age 2, but up to 1/3 of them take more like 28 months or so. 

If the world was perfect.   It would rain the 1st of Oct ( 4 to 6 inches) grass would jump out of the ground, cows would calve as soon as the rain stopped. Then rain a inch or 2 every 3 weeks. But weather is WEATHER man has no control. So a real guess as to when to calve. This year started calving in Oct feed hay until Mar 15. The poorest year in my 65 years. The state extension service has been recording grass tonnage for better than 20 years. This year is 80% LESS than normal. Just the way thing go in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Looks good  every time I hear you guys talking of feeding in a blizzard and moving snow.   The weather is why my cow numbers go up and down so much.

So this fall hopefully my cows will calve in 45 days. But the preg checkers are human to. There have been some from here that travel and do it all year, and are much better. When feed is good the window gets bigger and bigger. I am not the buy and sell type guy. As well as foothill abortion and anaplasmoses are thing that make it hard to bring cows in from other areas, but vaccines have been developed for both. So it may get easier in the future. 

So anyway calves are branded once a year given shots and castrated. Anything from one day old to 800 lbs . In winter all castration is done with a knife. Ones that are missed and castrated in warmer "fly season" do get banded. Not castrating cost a $100 or more at the auction so we do the best to get it done, but unusual to have a bull in the bunch leaving. Last year made a deal on a misted bull with guy in trade for work  he is reporting he tastes very good.

Oh, it makes sense.......and if I had huge numbers of head, and shipped even a trailer load to an auction or whatever every so often, I would probably change.  But, for my facilities, and satisfying freezer customers scattered throughout a year, my way works for me.  In other words, if I had all my fats finished that quickly all at once, I wouldn't have anyplace to sell them economically.  As freezer beef, I can set my price to some extent.  If I can get $1900 for a critter and know it, to me it's better than putting them in my trailer and going to the sale (100 miles one way), and getting god knows what.

So yes, I get it, I understand.  Guess I'm just different.  And LOTS of compliments on my meat, so. . . 

Here in California cotton seed has always been a good protein source, but not so much now. In the old day near a million acres of cotton today 150,000  tops.

Are annual grasses that dry out by June have always needed a protein boost by fall for range cows.  Feeding cotton seed that has the oil extracted tends to dry into lumps and was called cake. So could be put out on the ground, but was really cheap in the beginning. By the time I can remember the cotton seed was always mixed with trace minerals and a bit of grain. Then somebody figured if you mixed salt you could feed it free choice and not have to feed daily.

My dad took that so far as to have wood feeders that held 4 ton at a time. Fill them in the fall in places you would have a hard time reaching once our rains started. Any old dry rained on grass with high protein and a small amount of grain mixed with 33% salt to limit consumption and we where set for winter. Never feed a bale of hay. But Cargill getting a monopoly on the salt business has changed the game again. The last year I fed any amount of salt mix as it was called the salt cost as much as protein and grain in it. Using my labor to feed hay daily became cheaper.  

Since I can grow grain to make into hay and have no water to grow alfalfa we still need to feed a protein source. But don't need that much. Some years with just bit of fall rain to start the grass they don't need much hay. The 200 lb tubs of molasses base are used by just about all around here now.

WOW that's a lot of vaccines!  

Then about 2 weeks later, another one died!  WTF?!  Had an autopsy done on it......the one vet tech neglected to send the samples in, so no results.  And yes, she got fired over it. 

Then had one die this year.  Cocci.  Turns out, the feed store was selling me the wrong type of Rumensen, and my bad as well for not catching the difference.

I liked it better when none that age died!!!

Never really been around cattle on the end of a long trip. There was one fellow that who grow up cowboying and ended up with a electronics company that had equipment on the first moon landing. That had 100 cow ranch here in his old age. His son tried buying stockers from the local auctions after his dad died. Which was a slow motion train wreck. So a vet and others got him to buy 1 iron calves on video auction then process them right off the truck with 8 different shots. This worked so good Junior had to sell this little ranch and buy a much bigger one. Which was all the way in New Mexico so no idea how that went.

In the good old days (60's to 7o's) mostly everybody really in the cow business sold yearlings. California was the home of the first big feedlots so the yearlings did not get long ride ether. I want to say 74 was the year my dad sold weaned calves rather than yearlings. Only the last 10 years that I could see much difference in the price for true weaned calves over ones that did the weaning on the truck. 

I think it was 2014 the local auction less than 20 miles away closed/moved. They still have a receiving yard for those like me that cannot put a pot load together. But we also got a new player in another yard a 100 miles away. There are 4 auctions all about 2 hours truck time from me. In normal years I am trying to wean and give another round of shots before taking them to auction. But another kick in the ass this year as state university report is out, 80% LESS feed than normal on the range. On advice of my favored auction we gave a second round of 8 way and BVR and loaded them  2 weeks latter to ball on the truck. So some nice cows went down the road too. May next year be better.

Ray, the auction that you speak of that is a receiving yard now to put together pot loads, is exactly what they do back east to get the cattle out here.  Where I get them in GA is simply a gathering yard, they work the country and small auctions then bring the cattle in and sort for size and quality to fit the orders they have from us buyers.  They then put the cattle in "grass runs" after they are giving any shots I or someone else would want.  They start buying monday and usually ship thursday, then friday they clean their facility, then once a month on a saturday they sanitize the whole place.  The original buyer down there I started with over a decade ago passed on a couple years back and now his brothers 2 son in laws are running it and they're nice guys doing a good job just like before.  I don't know where they find all the cattle but they usually ship 7-14 loads a week out here.  All of them will go to TX,OK,KS,NE.

The big feedlots out here usually only take weaned yearlings (feeder size cattle)  If you send a load of say straight #400 sucking calves to them get ready for a train wreck(10-15% death loss).  They just aren't set up to deal with sucking calves,  they will take them if you send them but they will never buy them for themselves.  They try to find a back ground yard to start them for them, then ship them in to just feed after there healthy.  I think the biggest problem they have is finding a sick one in time.  I feed twice a day with a feed truck into the fence line bunk and that is where I get tag #'s for sick ones, never going into the pen.  That will spoke them and when they run you don't have a prayer of finding a sick one and if you do see a sick one when they're spoked it's way too late, calf probably 2 days past saving.  The big feedyards still use horses to ride pens and 50 years ago every cattlemen had a horse but today 90% of them use a sideXside or 4 wheeler, so those horses now days spoke them, sure after 3-5 days they are used to the horse but if you don't have a handle on them in those first few days your train wreck is already started.  I actually use a 4 wheeler to pull sick ones and they just stand there and look at me, now if I walk up to the bunk on foot they will spoke and scatter for the first few days, so that's why I set in the feed truck (looking thru binoculars) to get sick ones tag #'s.

Interesting that you brought up the start of big feedyards,  Brookover Feedlot in Garden City Ks was the first commercial yard that started feeding straight corn to finish cattle in 1951.  Everyone said it wouldn't work, but old man Brookover had irrigated corn to get rid of in GC so that's what he did.  Until then they were ran on grass for 2 years to finish.  That changed history, today all most all beef is finished that way and 200,000+ a day are slaughtered.  This coutry would get really hungry without it.  This country can produce corn like no other and cattle can consume it like no other,  its just a great way to feed a nation.  Brookover feedlot is literally in Garden City, it set on the NW corner of town and houses and businesses are on the south, east and west side of it.  It has a great big sign along the highway that says "The one that started it all"  now there are 100's of commercial feedyards in western KS and major packers all over.  Just west of Brookover's IBP put in a packing house in maybe late 60's early 70's that was still the largest in the world in the early 90's when I was in college, at that time it could slaughter up to 8,000 hd a day.(It's the Tyson plant that caught fire couple years ago)  Today I don't think it runs that many head with regulations days off and cleaning shifts, maybe 5-6,000. I should add cattle are finished bigger and the plant probably still puts out the same pounds of meat but on less head.

You know I often have wondered about old man Brookover, was he that smart or that lucky when he finished his first pen of cattle on corn?  I suppose a little of both, but there's no denying what he did changed history.

Here's a link to Brookover's website.  That picture of the baby on the homepage with the bins in the background, I have no idea how they kept houses out of it because they are literally on the other side of those bins.  I guess camera angle?

https://brookover.com/

Ray, there's one thing about Garden City,  all that stuff that those liberals cry about stinking and polluting, they say bring it on we'll take!!  The town has it's own aroma but I think it must be the smell of money because they have a bank on almost every street corner in town.

Ok,  here ya go.  The first video is shot at one of Ford Co. Feeders' bunkers, I think they have 5 maybe and I think I told you guys wrong, I think they feed around 7 million bushels of corn with around half being high moisture.

I put the second one up because, its pretty fitting to this site.  It's Stegman harvesting out of Spearville KS picking high moisture corn for Ford Co,  They run 3 Gleaners and the owner is a 3rd generation custom cutter and they've ran nothing but Gleaners for three generations, I know the owner and he is a great guy.  Also at the end they are at the bunker and there is a old FiatAllis wheel loader filling the roller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqOStdSG_zQ" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqOStdSG_zQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UADH-ikLo" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UADH-ikLo

Dr Hire was a child of the Dust Bowl, raised in Colorado, PHD from Cornel in New York. Had a brother that made a bit of money feeding cattle in the 1940's. As he put it his bother was the only guy in town not already so over extended at the bank.  So they loaned him some money and he a feed out a lot of steers for a profit.

Maybe some of you have memories of dad or grandpa feeding steers in the corn country. But I was told that was the way it started, a winter job for corn farmers. And hope beef sells better than corn. His contention that California had the first 10,000 head feedlots more because of bigger banks. A chain bank like Bank of America had so much more money than the one town one bank of the mid west. Always warned not that other places did not figure out the big feedlots just took time to get the money available.

Now I am kind of wishing I that old pile of papers. To a degree it seemed like busy work at the time. I got a good grade, but did not know how happy the good PHD was till years latter. Someone local but 5 to 10 years younger started asking me about that paper. Said the prof bring it out and showed it off ever so often.

About the video's are they packing the high moisture corn in like silage would be. I though the corn was to dry for that and you need the blue silos for that.

Not that we see how long it can lay out in the field.  But grain hay the most common out here gets left weeks and weeks. Since no rain and rocks most don't even own a crimper. So the rule of thump on oat hay never try to bale in less than 10 days, 14 being far more common. The next rule bale it with dew on it. You knock the seeds heads off and turn it into powder, having most of the leaves blow away. With only 2 to 4 hours of baling weather most days. Not uncommon to get hot periods with no dew for a week or more. 

The alfalfa guys would run one swather and 3 balers to keep cut acres and baled more or less even. With the ground being damp they can bale most nights. But of course they need to get hay out to put water back on it. The last ranch doing 100's of acres of alfalfa just quit alfalfa in favor of growing pistachio nut. More dollars return per gallon of water pumped.   

I know of a micro climate here where a 100 to 200 acres of oat hay lay from May till Sept. Told from June until days get shorter just no dew in that area.

We loose green color but that is not that important if you have sugar in the stem. More art than science but if the sugar is right animals lick it up to the last little straw. Better than 90% of hay is cut with a swather here goes into a windrow an never raked. So the bottom has a good bit of color most times . But grain can turn color fast and most thing hay that has dough at cutting so most seeds end up being able to germinate makes the best hay we can get. We are not looking for the best protein content looking for energy from sugar/starch in the plant. Looking for the most valve out of dry land conditions. For mother cows supplement proteins with tubs or alfalfa.

My personal hay making was greatly influenced by my father that was a horse lover first and foremost.  Feeding grain hay with grain was all the horses got. If being rode daily maybe a little can full of grain as you brushed and saddled them.

But the ground is very dry before we normally cut hay as well so other than color and what seeds gophers and squirrels eat  it doesn't change.    

More or less the same thing with the pastures dry and brown from June until Oct, Nov, even Dec before it looks green again. So any rain in the dry time of year is more harm than good. Had thunder storm in July a few years ago got 4 inches and more over night, dried out so fast nothing tried gowning. The dry feed was not degraded as bad as one might have thought. But still not good for anything, other than starting fires.

The more I look at other places that make dry hay in 3 or 4 days the grasses of choice don't have the big hollow stem like barley, oats, and wheat it would seem.

....That's kind of the way things go around here, every year, and I still can't guess right!