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Sep 5

A new playbook for limit feeding – High Plains Journal

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Kansas State University graduate student Tyler Spore conducted a series of feeding trials to study high-energy receiving diets. He found that high-energy diets up to 60 NEg had no effect on the health of lightweight calves. (Journal photo by Doug Rich.)

Limit feeding has been around forever. As long as it has been around it was believed that feeding a high-energy diet was a no-no. New research at the Kansas State University Stocker Unit could prove that high-energy diets have a place in the stocker business.

We wanted to push the frontier on energy content in the diet and do so using soluble fiber rather than starch, said Dale Blasi, manager and director of the KSU Beef Stocker Unit.

Feeding a high-energy diet using soluble fiber rather than starch from cereal grains was the subject of a feeding trial at the K-State Stocker Unit. The energy dense diet was very efficient and caused no health problems when used in a receiving ration. (Journal photo by Doug Rich.)

Tyler Spore, a graduate student at Kansas State University, conducted a series of feeding trials at the stocker unit to answer some basic questions about feeding a high-energy diet to stocker calves. Although energy dense diets had been studied in the past, Spore found that one of the things not tested with limit feeding was using soluble fiber rather than starch from cereal grains to increase the energy density in the diet.

The core of the research is how much gain animals can get while limit feeding, Spore said. What we are trying to do is target a specific gain while offering less feed. One of the main issues with targeting gain is a free choice diet.

In a free choice situation, cattle that only want to eat the wet distillers grains or the corn gluten do a good job of sorting those out of the bunk. Less aggressive cattle come to the bunk too late to get the benefit of those energy dense components.

By limiting feeding you can better estimate each bite of feed, Spore explained.

Historical research

Research done in the 1970s linked an increase in energy in the receiving diet with increased morbidity. As a result producers, were cautioned not to increase energy in receiving diets above a certain level.

The standard growing ration on most stocker operations is a 50 to 52 NEg (net energy gain) diet. Producers dont go much higher than that because they think the cattle might develop acidosis and go off feed, according to Blasi.

Chad Cargill, a stocker operator from Isabel, Kansas, limit feeds lightweight high risk calves. He starts them on a 48 NEg ration and then moves them up to a 50 NEg diet.

My work is not to argue the fact that increasing energy in diets based on cereal grains might cause those issues, but we are not seeing it when we use 40 percent byproduct in the diet, Spore said.

The first KSU trial used a range of energy concentrations including 45, 50, 55 and 60 NEg diets. The 45 NEg diet was fed free choice while the others were limit fed. The amount of hay in the diets decreased from 45 percent in the 45 NEg diet to 13 percent in the 60 NEg diet.

That first study featured a set of mixed breed heifer calves from an auction market in southeast Tennessee. They weighed 470 pounds on arrival.

At regular intervals during the trial the cattle were bled and tested for haptoglobin, a marker for inflammation that is an indicator for digestive upsets. Spore also tested the blood for Titers to see if the immune system would be affected by the dietary treatments.

Long story short, the dietary treatments had no effect on any of those health parameters, Spore said.

They also found that the 60 NEg diet was 27 percent more efficient than the high roughage 45 NEg diet.

Those were the two big breakthroughs from this study, Spore said. You can feed this high energy diet that is 40 percent byproduct based and not see any difference in health and be 27 percent more efficient.

A side benefit of the low roughage-energy dense diet is less manure. In a feedlot situation this means less time spent cleaning pens and less manure to remove.

Healthier calves

Cargill said he is more concerned with health than with gain in his feeding operation. He handles 30,000 high-risk calves a year that come in from the southeastern United States weighing 350 to 650 pounds. Limit feeding is a good way for him to monitor the health of these lightweight calves.

Limit feeding really aids in evaluating the health of the cattle, Cargill said. If you are limit feeding a high nutrient feed and they dont come up and eat there is something wrong with them.

In trial No. 2 Spore fed the 50 NEg diet and 60 NEg diet at 2.4 percent of body weight and 2.2 percent of body weight, respectively. Cattle for this trial were single source cattle from a ranch in Florida and came in weighing 480 pounds on average.

There were no health problems from the high-energy diet and the efficiency was identical to the first trial. Three calves were pulled in the first three weeks but other than that no sick calves were pulled during the 56-day trial.

In trial No. 3 Spore wanted to see if feed intake affected feed efficiency. The cattle used in this trial were single source fancy black calves from a ranch in Montana weighing 460 pounds on arrival. These calves were fed the 60 NEg diet at 1.9, 2.2, 2.5 and 2.8 percent of body weight.

I thought efficiency would fall off at 2.8 percent of body weight and that would be our ceiling, Blasi said.

That did not happen. Feed to gain stayed the same for all treatments. In fact, it was numerically the same for all treatments. It should be noted that the cattle were fed hay on arrival and the next morning they went right on the 60 NEg diet without a step-up phase. Again, health was not an issue.

If you know how many days you need to feed cattle before they go to grass or are looking at the market you can dial this diet in accordingly, Spore said.

Cattle used in trial No. 4 came in a little heavier at 550 pounds and were steers only. Spore was interested in predicting growth with this 70-day trial. A 60 NEg diet was fed at 2 percent of body weight but one ration contained wet corn gluten and one used wet distillers grains also one ration used whole corn and one used dry rolled corn.

At the end of this trial there were no differences in weight gain or health. All of the cattle gained 2 pounds and again health was not an issue. However there was a drop in efficiency. Feeding at 2 percent of body weight is just a maintenance diet.

Limit feeding a high-energy diet based on byproducts could be a useful strategy for stocker calves going to grass or to the feedlot without affecting their health.

Doug Rich can be reached at 785-749-5304 or drich@hpj.com.

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A new playbook for limit feeding - High Plains Journal

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