 Good morning and thank you for tuning in to our monthly animal science and forage webinar series today I'm going to be talking about the use of whole cotton seed and beef cattle diets and one of the things We're going to do today is talk a little bit about the agronomic characteristics of cotton production and how that ultimately Influences whole cotton seed feed quality or cotton byproducts that beef producers get to use as winter feed resources As an outline of what we're going to cover today First of all, I wanted to talk some about field aspects of cotton production And then how when that product is harvested beef producers use cotton byproducts as part of their winter supplementation program and highlight some of the feeding recommendations associated with those products as well as methods for transport and storage and And finally cover some animal performance information as it relates to cow-calf operations and Highlight some future research that we plan to conduct here in Alabama on this topic As far as agronomic characteristics of whole cotton seed production There's a few considerations to think about as it relates to how has cotton production changed over the last several years So we know typically there is turnover in terms of the varieties of cotton that are planted as new varieties are produced Those are ones that ultimately have changes in terms of their yield production capacity And so with that there may be some changes associated with the overall seed size That we get from that cotton after it's harvested the seed density as well as the nutritional quality of that seed So from a cotton growers standpoint There's an opportunity then to increase the seed value associated with cotton as it's being harvested Because those changes and seed size and seed density may influence the overall bale weight That's harvested in those fields and then on the beef producer side that seed density change may Improve or influence our overall whole cotton seed quality of the product that we receive and ultimately feed to cattle If we take a look at our cotton components and how does that influence the by-products then that are used as part of beef cattle production systems First of all, we just have the overall bowl and the lint that is gin out During that process and the seed is left behind and is a product that we can use as a beef cattle feed We also have those holes or the bowl area surrounding the lint material And the stems associated with that so those residues all then go into components of by-products That represent potential feed material that can be used for livestock Factors influencing the overall seed quality that we should be aware of from a field standpoint include The cotton variety that's being planted So as we just mentioned that may influence the overall seed size as well as the seed density That we're getting the overall seed source or where that seed is coming from How it's been stored and maintained and then finally the growing conditions associated with the cotton production season So in terms of field weathering, this is really maybe The biggest contributing factor for us to think about that in wet years There would be more field weathering associated with that cotton crop compared to drier years like maybe what we've experienced this summer Which can influence the overall seed quality If I hire moisture product is something that's going through the gin and that whole cotton seed has more water associated with it Then we can set up a situation where that seed can go through a heat during the storage process Which would decrease the overall nutritional value of that seed product then that a livestock producer would be receiving If we look at just a highlight of some of the cotton byproducts associated with cotton harvest The main focus of our conversation today is around whole cotton seed But there are also a lot of other cotton byproducts that are useful materials That can be used as part of a beef cattle ration one of those being gin trash This is primarily all those parts and pieces that are left over after the ginning process So a lot of that being the stalk or the stem material leaf material and hulls Which would be considered a lower quality roughage source We can get this in loose or bulk bale form depending on the gin that it's coming from Cotton moat is going to be a similar product But maybe one that has more immature seed associated with it Maybe a bit more of that lint material associated with it compared to gin trash alone stalk residue would be just what is remaining in the field post cotton harvest and is a product that can be grazed and Then cotton seed hulls would be again that area surrounding that that bowl on the cotton plant That is a good feed roughage source as well A lot of times producers that are using cotton seed hulls Will include that Interaction to help with the consistency of a feed because it is very palatable to cattle It helps them transition on to feed well And it also adds a good flow and a good texture to a feed mix in your operation Finally one that is a very high quality resource that sometimes is often forgotten about is cotton seed meal This would be a high protein byproduct of cotton production That is often used in small amounts in poultry diets as well as swine diets But it's a very good high protein resource that can complement Your high energy feed in your livestock system in terms of whole cotton seed feed characteristics If we look at overall feed value associated with those the primary Nutritional value of those is coming from the oil as part of the cotton seed as well as the lint or the fiber material associated with that So in terms of the overall feed value the energy value of whole cotton seed is very good Around 96% TDN or total digestible nutrients The reason we have such a high energy value associated with this feed is because it is high and digestible fiber Coming from that lint material and then also high and fat contribution So the fat is good from an energy standpoint But it's also something that we'll see later on kind of sets a limit for how much whole cotton seed cattle can consume In terms of the crude protein percentage This is one that I think people often think about first when they think about feed quality and it is a very high protein feed source relative to other Byproducts that we can get in the state, but really when we look at whole cotton seed We have to look at both the energy and the protein Contribution together. Okay, so this is a good balance feed and that it's both high in energy as well as a good source of protein Which is a good complement to our hay based feeding systems that we would often use in the winter months here in the southeast Whenever we get into a conversation about feeding whole cotton seed Oftentimes the use of whole cotton seed to people may be a little bit more limited or they're hesitant to use it because of Potential for gossip all toxicity and so cotton plants naturally contain a compound called gossip all Which when fed at high levels or is in high concentration and cotton plants can lead to toxicity or sterility problems in bulls And so there it should be noted that there are some differences in terms of Cotton plants and their level of gossip all that they have associated with them So upland type cotton that's primarily grown in the southeast has lower levels of gossip all Compared to Pima cotton, which is more grown in the western United States So generally with our cotton that's produced in the southeast although it does contain gossip all It's at levels that's that are low enough to prevent these types of problems that we may encounter in terms of sterility And we're often feeding them at a low enough level to where it's not considered an issue in terms of feed supplementation in Terms of a cost per ton associated with whole cottonseed These numbers were gotten off of the Alabama weekly feed stuff and production cost report So I would encourage you to go and look at that as your resource if you have any questions about Whole cottonseed cost as well as any other byproduct feed costs in the state but the range really depends on local availability and So it would be important to contact a local gen to determine what the price point would be in your respective area But overall for the last couple of years the price point of whole cottonseed has been One that has allowed it to be a good resource for producers as a winter feed as an economical supplementation option In terms of the supply of whole cottonseed Generally the supply is going to coincide with harvest season for cotton production So october through march is going to be the peak supply time At most gens and those would be the sources where you would want to contact to try to figure out Whether or not you could get whole cottonseed for use as a winter supplementation product We also have a commodity feed list that we are building that we would like to include cotton gens on We have some gens already on the list But those would be ones that you could reach out to you as a potential resource If you're interested in potentially using whole cottonseed as a feed supplement In terms of our winter feeding recommendations for mature beef cows The current recommendation is for whole cottonseed to be fed at not more than half a percent of animal body weight per day So for most cows that would be within the five to seven pounds of whole cottonseed range per head per day And typically one of the factors to consider is if cattle have not been exposed to whole cottonseed before or they've not eaten it before It may take a little bit of a transition time to get them used to consuming this product So because of the texture and consistency We can see that limp material around the seed It may deter livestock from consuming it at first But they will acclimate and then go on feed at this level So this is typically something that we may see more frequently with Freshly weaned calves or stalker cattle that as young cattle they may take a little bit longer to transition onto that than a mature cow would In terms of self feeding whole cottonseed This is something that can be done Because of the fat percentage associated with whole cottonseed It will act as kind of a self limiting feed for beef cattle in a free choice feeding situation However, this is not going to be as efficient from a feed standpoint as hand feeding because Beef cattle will have the tendency to consume more of the whole cottonseed than what you would provide At that maximum of a half a percent body weight per day feeding level Okay, so from a labor standpoint This is a beneficial practice because it would reduce the need to feed cattle on a daily basis However, I think the biggest consideration in terms of hand feeding versus self feeding is largely going to be related to cost So we know that they are going to have increased consumption using this method And so that's something to consider when trying to determine the way that you would use this product Also the overall long-term implications of feeding free choice whole cottonseed During the winter kind of year after year are not really known And most of the published work that's out there with whole cottonseed There were not negative implications in terms of cow performance or reproduction From doing this practice But again in terms of a self feeding situation is not going to be as efficient in terms of the feed use compared to hand feeding whole cottonseed transport and storage considerations are Things that we should consider as we prepare for the winter feeding season If we're in a situation where we are able to acquire whole cottonseed in bulk or large quantities We want to make sure that we have a proper storage capacity for that The best situation for that is going to be to store it in a covered area. There's open airflow And preferably on a concrete floor or a concrete pad And that is because that whole cottonseed the moisture that's associated with that still will exchange heat with whatever surface it's stored on And so the best situation is going to be on a concrete floor But we do not want to store whole cottonseed On just dirt alone because it will allow that cottonseed to begin to sweat And maybe encourage it to go through a heat which can decrease the overall feed value of that product So if we do need to store it in an area where dirt is the only option then We would want to create a barrier where There is some type of breathable material between the soil surface and the cottonseed product So adding three inches of a low quality hay To that area would create that barrier, but we would not want to use plastic because that would not be a breathable surface When we stack large quantities of whole cottonseed We want to make sure that the stack is less than eight feet high This reduces the chance of overheating in that situation If we get into a situation where it's packed more densely and greater than eight feet high Then we start to have heat pockets that begin to occur throughout that whole cottonseed And again that can decrease the overall feed value in a long-term storage situation Whole cottonseed is considered to be a bulkier feed compared to some and this limits its use in self feeders And because of that it does not flow well in terms of those self feeding situations Also in terms of depending on how you store it if you were trying to put this in a grain bin And then maybe auger out of that grain bin. It's not going to auger out of that situation very well In terms of the density Of whole cottonseed we think about this being kind of a fluffy seed product And overall we have about 22 pounds per cubic foot This data is one from cotton incorporated And it's a good number to think about when we're preparing to feed this product out And think about how much cottonseed can we get in different storage and feeding capacities If we're going and picking up seed at the gen or maybe having that delivered to us That overall density of that product influences how much we can acquire at one time or store in certain situations So if we look at just on average a tote or a bulk bag or super sack or terms often used for that Those typically hold about a thousand pounds of whole cottonseed kind of a elevated level of that if you were wanting to transport a bit more a homemade 16 foot trailer with wooden sides on it It's going to be one that can hold a bit more around two and a half to three tons of that product And then a larger trailer that has a walking floor associated with it It's going to be our more of our bulk situation where we're receiving large loads of around 25 tons If we were just trying to calculate then When I go to feed this product if I'm feeding a group of cattle at one time How much would I be giving to them at one time if I were using let's say a front-end loader to be able to go and feed In a bulk situation so I just took some dimensions from a common front-end loader size and multiplied the length by the depth by the height to come up with how many cubic feet is associated with that so in this example Our front-end loader bucket was 21 cubic feet capacity And I know that I can have 22 pounds of whole cottonseed per cubic foot So that's around 462 pounds of whole cottonseed then that I would be able to get on this front-end loader And while that may seem like a pretty specific number for this situation It gives you an idea that we're really within that 450 to 500 pound range with this type of system And it gives you an example of how you may be able to calculate that at home Depending on the way you plan to feed that whether that's with a front-end loader or whether it's by going out and delivering that with five gallon buckets Overall, there's been a lot of research conducted in terms of evaluating animal performance whenever we feed whole cottonseed in a supplementation situation I want to just start out by highlighting a project that we had conducted here at the ev smith research center in shorter While we were simply looking at different winter feeding programs And trying to identify ways to reduce labor during the winter feeding period So the upper left photo here shows cattle that are on one of those treatments And this is cow calf pairs these cows were about three months Had about three month old calves on them at the time of the start of the study and This particular picture shows a group of cattle that are consuming 50 50 soy hulls and corn gluten feed Fed every other day along with free choice hay access to that hay every day of the week And then the middle photo shows the cow calf pairs that were fed free choice whole cottonseed as well as free choice hay And then comparing that with winter grazing systems So a mixture of oats ryegrass and crimson clover and just looking at overall cost among those systems and animal performance So today I just wanted to highlight the overall animal performance that we saw in those systems of grazing winter annuals versus these reduced labor winter feeding systems And the system in the middle shows our whole cottonseed plus hay system And that is important to note that These were lactating cows during this winter supplementation trial And across all of the systems all of the cattle maintained a body condition score of six Or even slightly increased in body condition score on these different types of supplementation strategies In terms of the calf performance in the systems The reduced labor winter feeding systems had average daily gain on the calves between 2.5 to 2.7 Pounds per head per day compared with our winter annual system which had greater average daily gains around 3.3 pounds per day But overall we can see the the weaning weights associated with these groups were still very respectable across each of these different systems So what this tells us is that from a labor standpoint We were able to reduce labor and still use these different types of strategies to carry cows in the winter However, from a feed efficiency standpoint This is the part that's important to note associated with that whole cottonseed system Is that we did observe that the cattle would consume more than they would if we were supplementing at the half a percent body weight rate So cattle in these groups were consuming around 10 pounds per head per day for lactating cattle that weighed around 1300 pounds and so that was More than what they would have done if we were using a hand feeding situation So in terms of understanding the cost for your operation, I would say it's going to be different for each person But the main value out of this approach was looking at it simply just from a labor standpoint being able to maintain performance in this situation From a feed efficiency standpoint There's been several trials looking at the appropriate feeding levels of whole cottonseed And we mentioned that half a percent of body weight per day is that recommended level And that outcome came out of some of this work from south georgia looking at supplementation levels And comparing that to feeding whole cottonseed in a free choice situation So at the half a percent body weight level They observed more consistent consumption of the whole cottonseed as well as hay in that situation Whereas in the situation where there was free choice supplementation It seemed that there was more erratic intake or consumption of that whole cottonseed in that situation So overall no differences again in body condition score of cows in this particular study And they all maintain at least a body condition score of six or greater across the trial But again this illustrates that At a hand fed situation of half a percent of body weight per day those animals were Having the same or similar type of performance compared to those who were consuming more in the free choice situation Kind of another way to think about the use of some of these winter supplements that I don't think We always think about is the fact that whenever we supplement our cattle We're getting nutrient return from those cattle Whether they're in a hay feeding area or whether they're out on a pasture and we're supplementing them there And so there is some nutrient return associated with that So one of our students conducted a trial at the eb smith research center With stalker cattle grazing annual ryegrass And looked at can we use these different supplementation strategies or planning legumes to help Reduce our nitrogen fertilizer needs in those cool season annual systems So the control Was an annual ryegrass system that was fertilized with 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre And then the additional treatments were those looking at Can we substitute 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre in that system with another source? Okay, so whether that source be coming from something like a clover Being crimson clover or air leaf clover Or whether that 50 pounds of nitrogen is coming from a source like one of these higher protein product supplements like distillers grains or whole cottonseed So in this study Today, I wanted to just show you the animal performance from that system and some of the stocking rate information Overall, this is our control treatment that received the 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre in that system And the blue bars show us the gain per acre Whereas the orange line shows us the average daily gains in that system And we can see that our nitrogen fertilized treatment was very similar to that of the distillers grains supplemented treatment As well as the whole cottonseed supplemented treatments So we were able to get similar animal performance Out of the system With the supplementation compared to our nitrogen fertilized treatments While reducing the needs for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer in that system If we look at the stocking rates We were able to maintain similar stocking rates in all of these systems compared with our nitrogen fertilized treatment And so really the decision as to use some of these supplements maybe as a way to substitute On nitrogen fertilizer is going to go back to looking at What is the cost it's going to take me to feed These supplements in the winter versus if I were to fertilize my annual ryegrass pasture at 100 pounds of nitrogen per acre So that's kind of the way we would think about that in terms of that decision making process But all in all illustrates that there are some other ways we can think about getting some benefits out of these higher protein supplemental feeds such as whole cottonseed Next steps of research that we plan to conduct in this state as it relates to whole cottonseed supplementation specifically Myself and dr. Jenny Kobernick as well as dr. Steve brown who are on our agronomy team are interested in looking at How have these cotton varieties changed over time? And does that influence the overall feed value associated with using whole cottonseed? So specifically we have a list of several cotton lines that are in our albin breeding program as well as some of the varieties of Cotton that are grown in the state Widely that we plan to evaluate For their overall digestibility as well as their protein value associated with those And then also screen those for their overall gossip all levels To verify whether or not we are above or below kind of the threshold that could cause problems From a feed quality standpoint We're interested in looking at these different cotton varieties as well as the cotton lines from this perspective largely because We mentioned earlier that we are getting a lot of that nitrogen from whole cottonseed is going back To our land area, whether that's in the hay feeding area or whether that's in the pasture area And so if there's a way that we can improve The ability of animals to better use that protein or better capture that protein in their diet Then that would be a beneficial practice that we could get out of this evaluation And so we want to look at where is the protein being used and Is there any difference in terms of protein level and use Depending on the type of cotton variety that it is also We're interested in screening for overall gossip all levels associated with those widely grown varieties here in the southeast So the implications of why this is important is to Give us a better understanding of can we improve our feed use efficiency with whole cottonseed By maybe reducing some of that Nutrients that are going to be returned to the pasture system And then just overall update our extension recommendations on whole cottonseed to make sure that they are in line with the recommendation that Maximizes the feed use efficiency in these systems And allows producers to have a better understanding Of how we can use some of these cotton byproducts that are available to us in the state The second piece of that study is to conduct an intake trial to better understand What is kind of the upper end of consumption of whole cottonseed that cattle can take in And then what is the level of gossip all that's associated with that level from these commonly grown cotton varieties in the southeast So this information will be used again to update our recommendations And to to verify what those levels of gossip all are And compare that to the thresholds that do cause those sterility issues Some of the outputs and outcomes associated with this project are to update our feed recommendations and then also be able to Provide a list to producers that contains Gens in the state where they can potentially purchase whole cottonseed or other cotton byproducts And if you have a cotton gen or if you have one in your local area that's not currently on the list Please feel free to contact me after this webinar And we would be glad to get their information added to our list to be able to update that So with that if you have any additional questions, here's my contact information And we would encourage you to visit our website alabama beef systems com to view the commodity feed list as well as other winter supplementation resources That are available to producers