 Our next topic tonight is talking on feed costs and some rations for backgrounding calves and There's always a lot to talk about when it comes to developing rations for cattle and How that fits in for backgrounding and there's just a wealth of things to talk about but again We're limited tonight for how far we can go But let's just cover a few things if you look over the past six years You can kind of see feed prices whether it be co-products or pure grain all kind of follow each other and About a year ago things kind of migrated apart quite a bit and if you look recently and this is actually today's price is when it comes to Corn and wheat mids and distillage grains Corns around I think 230 a ton wheat mids around 250 a ton distillers to to six 255 a ton Some pretty expensive feeds that we have out there. It's a whole different world. It's just more expensive But the two kind of go together That's where I come up and say, you know in reality when we're feeding calves you try to get weight on cattle It's all a matter of energy and our leader out there and producing energy for livestock is corn and corn the amount of starch and that it presents provides That price really sets a tone for all the rest of our feeds that are out there quick lesson in nutrition again We need energy to grow a livestock you either come from starch or come from cellulose since cattle are rumored animals And they can digest cellulose so whether it be grain or hay cattle need that for their energy then of course you need enough protein to allow them to digest the energy and Obviously we need vitamins and minerals because we've been sold in that for years And yes, we do need vitamins and minerals and if you're short on those you will suffer your performance Also good quality water is needed too But the main thing is as you increase the energy density of your ration you'll increase the gain in the cattle So I would like to try to highlight again more energy more growth More starch in the ration usually leads to more growth More digestible fiber in the ration will lead to more growth How do you measure energy in a ration really? There's two different ways that we normally go about one is to use the terms called total digestible nutrients It's measured in pounds or the other one is used in that energy system where they talk about any M or any G and that's really referred to in megacals per pound if you're kind of old school like me We still talk TDN because it's easy to understand and go Most feed yards talk about net energy and we'll have a few of those listed here later on too If I can ring throw one thing tonight That's figuring out your energy cost for the feeds and this is how you calculate the cost per pound of TDN for a feed You take the two hundred and thirty five dollars for corn. That's what six something a bushel is For corn right now 235 a ton So you take 235 divided by 2,000 pounds you come up with 1175 cents Divide that by the percent of TDN in the ration and you come up with 13 cents divide that by the dry matter So you're always comparing things in a dry matter basis and you come up with the price of energy for corn at 14 Point it well 14 cents point almost 15 cents do the math to compare things Here's our feed prices that I went through. I guess it was 658 per bushel for corn TDN kind of corn is 88 That's on a dry matter basis those can all change depending upon how you put your hay up or how you got your corn or what type of Corns you have it's really heavyweight corn. It might be up to 90% TDN might be less than that depending upon how things are working There's other can yeah, just grab one of those Let's see grass hay that's all over the board if you're dealing with some CRP hay I've tested some recently that's down around 44 to 46 percent TDN Pretty low quality stuff. If it was cut early in green. It could be quite a bit higher than even 52 and Wheat mids or 83 percent TDN barley mulch sprouts little less corn salvage Pretty high price stuff. It's $70 a ton. Let's figure 72 percent TDN Of course canola meal is a protein source $300 a ton is a current price for that energy wise it doesn't supply a lot of energy But it does provide a substantial amount of protein. Well, let's do some math here when it comes to doing feed costs I just got four values up there one for canola meal one for wheat mids one for corn another for Dried dried distillers grains not wet dry matter crude protein TDN cost per ton You can see what's listed across the top if you kind of study that thing you see the cost per ton for canola meal is $300 a ton cost per pound is 15 cents cost per pound of crude protein is 38 cents But here's my deal cost per pound of energy is 24 cents Look a wheat mids cost per pound of energy for wheat mids a 16 cents Corn is cheaper than wheat mids for cost of energy right now Unless you've got corn wheat mids priced in three months ago at a dollar seven at 170 bucks a ton today's price of 250 Makes corn a cheaper deal If you need to add processing on to the corn add another whatever it cost to add processing 10 20 30 40 Dollars a ton and then I'll change that math. Please do the math at home accordingly Maybe by the time you have to have the corn ground or processed It might be cheaper than wheat mids on the other hand if you do it on farm you don't have transportation cost put in place Corn might be cheaper Distillers grains is something you just can't ignore Ethanol plants produce a great product for cattle and that's distillers grains whether it be wet or dry Let's look at the dry price here at $255 a ton is what the quote is out of blue Flint today cost per pound is Presically the same as corn so here you get a great energy feed But you also get a protein feed to this 26% protein So in reality you're getting the energy for the corn price and you get in protein for free It really works in figure transportation to costs on top of that But you can see why a lot of feed yards have gone to use in distillers grains Matter of fact a one-time distillers grains used to be priced at about 90% the value of corn I see today at priced at about 110% the value of corn So they're asking more for it too since there's a dearth of feed needed out there in the area out there in the nation Here's one for energy for hay cost just energy and hay Round bails around here trying to be priced at $50 for a 1200 pound bale 48% TDN some of this CRP hay that was put out is that's kind of the upper end. I did find one at 50 once You do the math and you come down with 10 cents per pound of TDN. So that is cheaper than corn However, you can't get enough feed in the calves to make them gain We'll talk about that a little later corn stover a lot of that's being put up right now Our seascape our landscape up here looks more like my home back home in Iowa with all the corn They were piling around the area and you can see the cost of energy for corn stover is about five cents Really a low-cost feed when you look at pricing at $30 a ton around bale now There's some issues that comes to how much value there is in Corn stover as a fertilizer left on the field so that needs to be discussed not by me but by a Fertilizer person because there is some value in in the corn stover remaining out in the field lots of different ways to look at that number So when it comes down to corn stover, it's really cheap. It's low-cost feed It's great for bedding, but it does have a cost on the other hand Maybe a guy should look at that as a part of your cow feed ration rather than your calf feed ration just because the way the cost is Now if you're looking at average daily gaining calves Let's try to think through this one as you increase the average daily gain You need to increase the TDM in the ration if you want a half a pound 52 TDN, which is better than that prairie hay that we're looking at As you increase the rate of gain you have to increase the TDN value. It just Increases it substantially next to the TDN is the corresponding NEG net and she for gain value So some feed yard just saying yeah, we're going to feed our calves at a 0.49 NEG. What's that mean? That means around a 72 TDN ration that should give around three pounds a day Do you want a 0.38 TDN? I mean NEG ration? It's around a 64 TDN two pounds a day Okay, that's kind of where you go to from those. That's a sheet you can look at North Dakota produces an immense amount of processed feeds out here. It's just almost amazing how many How much production we have out here? However, if you start if you're in an area close to any of these Stars or locations You need to really think hard about trying to get feed out of them because transportation costs really bite into hauling those across the state The other problem we have this year is availability of feeds Um, I've had mixed signals on whether feeds are available One will say that we've got feed available for you next week others will say, you know in reality We're not getting our supplies that we need so it might be two months out It's a really frustrating time if you think you need distillers grains in about two weeks You should have probably looked at it about two weeks ago to try to make sure you get it Just so you get it schedule it in because a lot of this stuff is going out of state whether it's in Semi or rail car because the rest of the nation needs feed too and we've had a lot of it so The next slide really shows how many different distillers grains that are out there processing plants wheat midplants barley malt sprout We got a wet corn milling plant in the state potato byproducts beat tailings beat pulp my golly You know, that's a great feed Just remember you're hauling a lot of water when you're doing it and even when you figure that in It's still pretty reasonably priced when you're looking at 200 plus dollars a ton corn. It actually does fit in That's another discussion Again distillers grains just got to remind you it has both energy and protein You should limit it to no more than 30 on a dry matter basis when you're kind of feeding these calves up They love the taste and flavor distillers grains. You might end up with some sulfur toxicity, which like which looks like polio problems polin self-malatia problems Um, if it's fed at higher levels if you're feeding a high roughied ration Maybe your intake could be higher than that But you need to just watch out for those issues a word on good management feeding calves teaching them how to eat You can really screw up a group of calves if you don't do that right if you do it right They can respond and gain exceptionally well No matter how you feed them whether you feed them a feed bunk in a bucket or if you use a mixer wagon and go that route um, the next few slides are Are rations and associated average daily gains. This is beef for 575 weight calves The next one is for 660 weight calves And the next one after that I believe is 750 now on all these slides. I went through them rather quick, but if um Basically what they show is that as the calf gets bigger they can consume more feed And if you keep them on the same type of energy ration They'll actually pick up their performance a little bit as they get bigger as animals get cattle get bigger they can Consume more they can utilize poorer quality feeds better So my message there is if you got a young calf you really need to develop a good ration to keep them growing otherwise you will They won't perform as well once you're past that six seven weight Well, that's what we're doing we're trying to feed them up there But if you're below that 600 pound calf you really need a better ration than if you're above a 600 pound calf Getting them on feed the right way goes a long way. Now the next few rations are Slides have some more rations in them that are just a ray of different things I believe this will be held on our website. It's when we get this so you can review this at another time There is a handouts that your county agent might have or we have in the room If you had the opportunity to print those off apologies If you didn't have the access to them right away But they are available and you can look through them Basically as you increase the energy content you increase the average daily gain of the Cattle and I've got another sheet here that I've done and feed costs at a dollar 75 It'd be like 150 dollars a ton using some of the feeds we used if you're doing three and a quarter pounds a day gain It's 195 dollars a ton for that type of feed if you're looking at two and a half pounds a gain It's a hundred and seventy seven dollars a ton. Let me put it this way your feed cost per pound a gain Is from 80 cents to 70 cents and as you Decrease as you increase the gain your cost of putting on the gain decreases as you use more energy The cost of putting on the gain actually decreases So um, there's other things to think about and that is don't forget an ionophore Ionophores and that's spelled incorrectly there work really well. They do improve feed efficiency They're both attack and remence and are two are biggest ionophores There is some coccytosis going to control on those But if you have the opportunity to use it, I encourage you to unless you're doing natural programs implants They also increase average daily gain and if you're uh, not keeping heifers for replacements There's an opportunity there too coccytosis, of course, please manage that and uh feed additives Or be declinate or core red decox or core red Um, certainly, uh can control coccytosis and if you've ever dealt with coccytosis You'll do anything to prevent coccytosis from having happening. So, um feed prices I think they're relative to the corn price Younger animals have better feed efficiency So if you're going to develop a ration and get these calves going spend some extra money for a better Ration to get these calves up and going and as your energy density increases the feed efficiency Increased and when your background in calves the advantage really does go to grain And it still happens even though the price of corn stover is a is five cents and haze cheaper But when you're looking at putting gain on it keeps going to grain feed. So with that, um, I think i'll stop and ask the next person to start up unless there's a question I don't really have a question, but I have a statement We have a statement here at kerrington. Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that the higher the corn prices It forces you to become more efficient Yeah, it does. That's a good point Um, appreciate that the statement was as corn prices get higher It forces you to think about becoming more efficient in what you're doing Our next speaker is going to be john do better how to Yes Uh, we have a question here. Lamar. Yes, I can hear you Yes, what i'm wondering is if you're grinding hay for your ration on Five six eight steers And you're you're you have alfalfa as your crop and also corn stover. I mean That's what i'm doing and I notice. I mean they do well on it, but what's the what's the Ratio of one alfalfa or two alfalfa bales to one or what what's your research saying? Again it comes back to that target that you're looking for for average daily gain And if you're Um, I gotta hit the right number here And if you're looking for If you want better gain, you're gonna have to include more alfalfa If you're adding a lot of grain in the ration one to one would probably be okay It comes back to alfalfa works well because it's a protein source if you're backgrounding heifers becomes another issue If you're just feeding hay, I'd actually do two to one two alfalfas to one corn stover And they're not going to perform. Well, it all depends how good your alfalfa hay works. That's my thumb rule I've got grain in there too. I mean it's oats that's going in there given the price of corn I can buy oats a lot cheaper or raise it a lot cheaper. So that's what i'm doing is Roughly two alfalfa bales to one corn stover plus plus oats Yeah, um, that could work very well. What I'd suggest is let's uh Look at the ration at some point if you want to connect with me or al And uh, we can certainly evaluate that and see if what's going is meeting your Gain expectations for the cattle okay Be more than happy to do that go through a ration Our next speaker is going to be john duvetter on a my knot and uh, john is going to speak to us on Systems and budgets for backgrounding calves. John. I see your slide. I take it. You're ready Carl can we ask one more question? Well, sure Yes, crystal And your question is why don't you use a barley? I mean and and what at what percentage of the corn price would you use to compare barley with? Put it on a ton basis and use 80 to 90 the value of corn Yeah, this is kim We were just looking at that with some producers and barley is about five dollars and So that equates to about 588 corn. So yeah, if you've got barley and confeded that'd be a good alternative I would think right Carl I certainly agree with that tim the challenge I have up here I stopped at the at an elevator nearby and said oh you got any feed barley for sale Absolutely not So if you have access to it, it's it's right on good job Yeah, there really isn't a feed barley price. It's all malting barley, but the molsters got all they have now So you can you know the barley is kind of barley and the numbers I've seen about five dollars a bushel That's to buy it, but you're right Carl. You go in there and want to buy it. Maybe they don't have it It's whatever is available. It all feeds well