Controlled Feeding with new MFA Feed
By Dr. Jim White

Cadence is a new formulation that makes feeding calves safe and easy. 

Most cattle are fed in a “free-choice environment,” meaning they eat what they will or what they can. For cow-calf operators, the feed base is the farm’s forage resource (pasture, hay, silage etc.). Animal performance can be improved by supplementing energy and or protein as needed to the corresponding forage. Increased supplementation may be provided to stretch forage supplies or to keep animals warm in the cold of winter.

When feed is offered, animals will vary in their consumption. Some will eat more than others. While hand feeding to a bunk with more than adequate space tends to reduce the variation, often the labor requirements of doing so are too great.

When a processed feed is offered out of a self feeder, with average pasture or hay offered, and animals are able to eat at will, I would expect weaned stocker/backgrounder calves to eat about 2 percent of their bodyweight as dry feed. I would expect cows to eat 1.5 to 2 percent. Because animals can eat uneconomical amounts of feed, such feeding is often considered to be wasteful. When animals come off feed and producers pencil costs, they see that the animals ended up substituting processed feed for forage. They ate feed to a point that they reduced fiber digestion, and they did not utilize the forage resource well. In other words, their performance is usually very acceptable, as long as we don’t evaluate how they got there.

But just because supplemental feeding takes some management is not a reason to avoid it. Research and practical work show that 1 percent of bodyweight fed as processed feed will allow for maximum protein accretion in growing calves. The challenge has been how to get calves to cooperate—to get them to eat adequate feed but not overeat. The most reliable way of achieving this is to hand feed. That's because when given the chance to eat free-choice on a self feeder, calves frequently make bad decisions—bad decisions that cost the producer a considerable amount of money and cut profits.

For a number of years researchers in the industry have looked to different methods of controlling free-choice intake of supplemental feed. The methods usually employ altering the availability or the palatability of the supplement. We continue to work on this project, and we seem to be getting closer.

While MFA’s SLR has been a very successful product, we saw room for improvement in this important consumer need. So we have formulated a controlled intake feed called Cadence, a second-generation product that is now available.

What we have found with controlled consumption feeding is that there are several different ways the product gets used in the field. One way is to provide 1 percent supplement when stocker calves are on a diet of adequate forage quality and availability—where the objective is to increase calf performance. Another application is when forage base is short and the intent is to maintain animal numbers. A third objective is use of the product as a self feeder management aid. Cadence is formulated to address all these objectives.

Notes from the field
The optimum amount of feed supplement eaten by cattle is the amount necessary to achieve the desired effect. Variations of the optimum amount will be driven by the animals and the environment. If animals are grazing lush spring cool-season grass pastures, they may only eat 3 pounds of supplement. And if they are put into a dry lot with after-seed fescue hay, they might eat several times more.

The following are some notes I’ve taken on how to adjust intake with a controlled consumption feed:
To achieve 1 percent intake, you need: 1) Adequate forage availability and quality; 2) proper location of water (closer to the feeder equals higher processed feed intake); 3) good feeder management.

If the producer does not want to limit the consumption to 1 percent of body weight, mixing Cadence with corn or Cattle Charge will increase intakes.

Results from MFA trials
From Concordia Mo., backgrounding calves, on Cadence and hay:

• Aug. 17 to Sept. 21: Cadence fed without hay; average daily feed intake was 4.25 lbs.
• Sept. 21 to Oct. 3: Cadence mixed with corn, fed without hay; average daily feed intake was 13 lbs.
• Oct. 3 to Nov. 21: Cadence mixed with corn, fed without hay; average daily feed intake was 17 lbs.

We expect that mixing Cadence with Cattle Charge, especially in grain-short areas, will give better results than cutting Cadence with corn. Likewise, cutting Cattle Charge with Cadence would address the concern of the producer who thinks the animals are eating too much Cattle Charge.

We’ve also looked at Cadence with growing Holsteins. Young Holsteins on Cadence will usually eat more pounds of feed than beef animals. We have selected Holsteins for years on their ability to eat feed, so this is not unexpected.

In our study, 70 head were started on straight Cadence and gradually switched to a 50:50 mixture with corn. Cattle were running on mixed pasture—Bermuda grass, fescue, etc. It was very hot and very dry up to the final couple of weeks of this period. Baled hay was offered, but cattle did not consume much of it. Results:

3 Start weight: 556.1 lbs. End weight: 639.5 lbs. Average daily gain was 1.6 lbs. Feed (without forage) per pound of gain was 5.14 lbs. Cadence consumption per head per day was 5.5 lbs.

At a research station in Callaway County, we put 31 calves in a small lot with big bales of fescue and easily accessible water. These animals were creep fed prior to weaning. Conditions were dry with short pasture. The producer’s impression was that if calves were to overeat feed, this was a scenario in which they would do it. During the creep stage, from July 4 to Sept. 24, calves averaged 7 pounds per head per day consumption on Cattle Charge. On Oct. 11, the animals were switched to Cadence. Upon the switch, average daily feed intake was 7 lbs. per day, estimated to be 1.1 percent of bodyweight.

Click here to respond to this article
Back to top