finishing bulls

charityboy

finishing a few bulls they are on ad lib about four weeks and should be killed before x mas by my calculations they are going through 25 kg of nuts a day each they are also getting straw .just wondering is this a normal amount of nut ate this stage of finishing , they are piling on serious condition

kay 9

25kg is a serious amount of meal/nuts. Less would do with the same results mate, they can only process so much at any time and the rest is excrement;) Jes that's costly.

fatoftheland

thats a new world record! 2% of body weight in dry matter is normal. mine are stuffed on 13 kgs/hd/day

bogman_bass

cold that be 25kg per pen?

Bizzum

bogman_bass wrote: »

cold that be 25kg per pen?

Or could it be 25 Lbs/head (About 11Kgs each) ?

charityboy

no its 25kg per head four bulls and 200 kg is lasting 2 days , should i start filling the bin every day with half the amount they are eating at the moment ,its only in the last week that they are really ploughing through it ,

royaler83

charityboy wrote: »

finishing a few bulls they are on ad lib about four weeks and should be killed before x mas by my calculations they are going through 25 kg of nuts a day each they are also getting straw .just wondering is this a normal amount of nut ate this stage of finishing , they are piling on serious condition

12-14kg ad lib is the general amount for finishing a young bull according the journal a while back

Bizzum

charityboy wrote: »

no its 25kg per head four bulls and 200 kg is lasting 2 days

It's a lot of ration alright. I've never finished bulls for the factory so I can't tell you much.
One of the finishers on here will surely tell you!

charityboy

the 12 to 14 was the plan ,was filling the hopper all along and what ever they ate they got as there was no regulation on the hopper ,will it do any harm to cut them back at this stage, when i averaged out what they have eaten and what they will eat at this rate on a six week finish i will put roughly 630 kg per head in to them working out at 171.36 ahead

blue5000

charityboy wrote: »

the 12 to 14 was the plan ,was filling the hopper all along and what ever they ate they got as there was no regulation on the hopper ,will it do any harm to cut them back at this stage, when i averaged out what they have eaten and what they will eat at this rate on a six week finish i will put roughly 630 kg per head in to them working out at 171.36 ahead

charityboy are they eating any straw at all?

bob charles

I think your math is wrong somewhere, 2 - 2.5% tops of liveweight in DM is all any animal will consume. I would consider intakes approaching 2% very high for bulls. maybe your bulls are well over a ton liveweight

charityboy

they are fifteen to sixteen months 650 upward kg ,im buying the stuff and they are eating it like its going out of fashion and i have a weight docket for the ration ,i am a bit puzzled myself but they have put on serious condition and they are picking at the straw ,it would save my pocket if it was the other way around

bob charles

well you would be breaking even with a LWG of 2.75kgs per day:rolleyes:. (meal 240, KO% 55, dead price €4kg all round figures). you are feeding a ration that is 85%dm and coming in 25kg bags, and your day is 24hrs?

charityboy

yeh spot on bob , looks like they will be going on a measured ad lib diet from tomorrow

blue5000

Charity boy it might be worth sticking a calving camera on the hopper, maybe it's the neighbours cattle eating your meal? Are you out at work during the day?

Charlie Charolais

have you noticed the crows are the size of ostriches!?;)

flatout11

bob charles wrote: »

I think your math is wrong somewhere, 2 - 2.5% tops of liveweight in DM is all any animal will consume. I would consider intakes approaching 2% very high for bulls. maybe your bulls are well over a ton liveweight

spot on not a chance of them eating 25 kg a day

blue5000 wrote: »

Charity boy it might be worth sticking a calving camera on the hopper, maybe it's the neighbours cattle eating your meal? Are you out at work during the day?

sounds like a plan
any of your neighbours finishing a few sucks?

charityboy

put out 50 kg of nuts this morning round 7 bells , was around the yard most of the day and the hopper was licked clean this evening,read a piece on the journal web where they say never leave the bulls without meal when feeding ad lib , had a fellow look at them today and they will be hanging up next week ,it didnt faze him when i told him what they were going through,he told me his mortage is small compared to his meal bill every month and his house is not small ,finished cattle and cows before but never ad lib ,will be doing my homework when the next batch are going on it

pakalasa

Let us know how they kill out.
Did you weigh them before they went on ab-lib? It would be interesting to see if it's cost effective.

Dupont

are they fresians by any chance?the boss man has a couple of these in pens with mostly charlois,limousine and the stuff they eat is unreal for not putting on flesh. we meal on top of silage and they ate all theirs then push another one out of the way and ate theirs and do that maybe 4 times

charityboy

no they werent weighed should have done but the next batch will be weighed befofe during and after , all charlois out of charlois cows

Cavanjack

Finished bulls this year for the first time. 12kg a day plus straw. Don't think they would have ate any more.

charityboy

well cavanjack did you go everyday with the 12kg or did you fill a hopper and leave them at it

Cavanjack

charityboy wrote: »

well cavanjack did you go everyday with the 12kg or did you fill a hopper and leave them at it

Yeah split it into about 3 sittings a day. I know they say to keep The meal in front of them at all times but "they" arn't the ones paying for the meal and the crows round here are fat enough without feeding them expensive meal. It was a very laborious way of feeding them but at least the bulls got all the meal.

bob charles

Numerous split feeds will result in higher DM intakes over ad-lib