Jim MacDonald (Full Presentation)

Eric Buck Author

08/01/2024 Added

16 Plays

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The Role of Silage in Beef Systems

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[00:00:00.000]Well, it's been a great day.
[00:00:08.380]I guess Galen and Angel started this thing 2016, 2014.
[00:00:17.680]So 10 years, and they do it every other year.
[00:00:21.320]And initially, I asked Galen, I'm like, seriously, how much can you talk about silage, right?
[00:00:28.960]But they've just done a tremendous job over the years of coming up with fresh material
[00:00:34.120]to help producers and consultants, quite frankly, think about integrating silage and really
[00:00:39.940]upping the quality.
[00:00:42.340]And that's a problem in beef production systems, the quality of silage that is fed.
[00:00:49.840]I think somebody said 50% in beef systems is covered.
[00:00:56.340]And I grew up on a cow-calf operation in South Central North Dakota.
[00:00:58.960]Bismarck, North Dakota, and my dad did not cover silage.
[00:01:02.840]And of course, when my brother took over, you know, you do things the way that dad did
[00:01:07.800]things.
[00:01:08.800]And so he wasn't covering his silage, and it wasn't until we had a drought and he was
[00:01:13.460]trying to figure out how to feed cows longer without having to sell them that I convinced
[00:01:18.860]him to start covering his silage, right?
[00:01:20.700]You go through that math, you're putting up X number of ton.
[00:01:24.580]That's what you have out in the field.
[00:01:28.080]If you don't cover it, this is how much you're losing and this is how many days you can feed
[00:01:32.660]cows before you guys start selling them.
[00:01:35.480]If you cover it, we can probably increase the number of days that you can feed them
[00:01:40.660]before you hope you have grass by 10%.
[00:01:44.840]He's covered his silage ever since, right?
[00:01:46.480]So sometimes it's framing it that gets people to adopt those types of technologies.
[00:01:53.360]But I was able to have that conversation with him because of this conference.
[00:01:57.200]So it's developed a reputation on its own.
[00:02:03.000]So just wanted to compliment that.
[00:02:04.820]They asked me to talk about an easy topic.
[00:02:08.740]How does silage fit into beef systems?
[00:02:12.600]Specifically, want to talk about how its role in cow-calf systems,
[00:02:17.080]and backgrounding systems, and finishing systems.
[00:02:19.880]Then how does double crop forages fit in?
[00:02:24.780]Because you do have some growing degrees days
[00:02:26.960]left if you get it harvested.
[00:02:28.600]So that's a mouthful in 40 minutes,
[00:02:32.340]but that's what we're going to try to tackle.
[00:02:34.020]So Galen this morning presented,
[00:02:36.080]and I would say with a lot of depth.
[00:02:38.100]We're going to talk more breadth than we are
[00:02:40.220]depth as we move through these systems.
[00:02:43.280]Zach also mentioned 2018,
[00:02:45.760]there was a robust discussion on pricing.
[00:02:48.220]That was actually Dr. Kloppenstein,
[00:02:50.140]who did that with Henry Hilscher.
[00:02:52.300]We're going to review that.
[00:02:53.720]I think if we're going to have a discussion about how these fit in, how
[00:02:56.720]silage fits into these systems, understanding how it's priced,
[00:03:00.200]and being clear at least how I would evaluate the pricing of silage
[00:03:05.340]relative to other ingredients.
[00:03:06.900]Because that's the decision matrix.
[00:03:10.100]I've got this list of potential forages that I'm either going to produce
[00:03:13.200]or I'm going to buy, and what is their cost per unit of nutrient
[00:03:17.000]becomes really important.
[00:03:18.180]So we'll review that briefly.
[00:03:20.700]OK, so the pricing issue.
[00:03:22.960]10 times the price of corn is the old rule of thumb.
[00:03:26.480]And what I've concluded to is if that's the price that you're
[00:03:31.500]using into your diet, you're probably not far off.
[00:03:35.080]If that's the price that you're paying for your silage,
[00:03:38.500]you are way overpaying.
[00:03:41.020]And so I think when this becomes critical
[00:03:44.280]is when there is a change in ownership.
[00:03:47.440]If you are purchasing or selling silage,
[00:03:50.680]getting this pricing correct is critical.
[00:03:53.920]If you're growing your own silage
[00:03:56.240]and feeding your own silage,
[00:03:58.240]then it's an accounting issue within your system,
[00:04:02.460]but it's absolutely critical
[00:04:03.740]if you're purchasing or selling it.
[00:04:05.960]Okay, so one of the issues
[00:04:08.720]is that people want to market their grain
[00:04:11.560]over a period of time.
[00:04:14.260]They don't want to market it all in the fall, right?
[00:04:16.320]So they want to take advantage.
[00:04:17.760]The price goes up typically, especially into the summer.
[00:04:21.700]Why does the price go up?
[00:04:26.000]So most of the grain is harvested in the fall.
[00:04:30.560]There is a cost to storing dry grain.
[00:04:33.680]So one of the reasons that the price goes up into the summer
[00:04:37.460]is because you have to pay to store that grain.
[00:04:40.400]Whether that's on a bin on the farm
[00:04:43.320]or if that's in the elevator, there's a cost
[00:04:45.560]to storing the grain.
[00:04:46.940]There's also a cost to storing silage, right?
[00:04:49.740]There's a cost to putting it up and storing it in a pit.
[00:04:53.280]And so it's not logical to pay
[00:04:55.760]based on the annual yearly average,
[00:04:59.000]it probably should be priced at the time that it's harvested.
[00:05:02.740]Okay, in addition, from a agronomic standpoint,
[00:05:06.820]need to account for the nutrients removed.
[00:05:09.560]Okay, so if you're just harvesting grain,
[00:05:11.840]you're leaving the nutrients out there
[00:05:14.340]and we won't have a discussion as much as I'd like to
[00:05:16.620]about corn residue today,
[00:05:18.720]but you're leaving the residue out there.
[00:05:21.520]In the case of silage,
[00:05:22.740]you're removing all of those nutrients,
[00:05:24.340]so you need to account for that
[00:05:25.520]but also I think it's critical
[00:05:27.820]that in an integrated cropping livestock system
[00:05:30.520]that you account for the nutrients
[00:05:32.620]and the manure that are added back.
[00:05:34.560]I think if you're gonna use silage,
[00:05:36.140]finding a way to add manure back to that crop field
[00:05:38.820]is important and that needs to be priced accordingly.
[00:05:42.100]Corn price standing in the field,
[00:05:43.660]so it should be priced relative to corn
[00:05:46.000]but not corn harvested, corn standing in the field.
[00:05:49.420]We had a discussion earlier in the day
[00:05:51.220]about harvesting and costs of harvesting, right?
[00:05:55.280]There's also a cost to harvesting dry grain,
[00:05:57.720]so you need to subtract the cost
[00:05:59.860]of harvesting the dry grain
[00:06:01.120]and add the cost of harvesting the silage.
[00:06:04.460]And then remember that shrink has a major impact on costs,
[00:06:09.460]right, so whether you're at 10%, 15% or 20% shrink
[00:06:13.300]has a major impact on the cost.
[00:06:15.960]So this is a copy, an image that came directly
[00:06:20.040]out of that 2018, just to refer you to it.
[00:06:22.540]I won't go through this in specific,
[00:06:25.040]but this is, we don't have Dr. Klopfenstein with us anymore,
[00:06:27.400]but this was his formula basically to price silage.
[00:06:30.620]So he'd take 7.65 times the price of corn,
[00:06:34.280]plus a fixed cost per ton of dry, sorry, per ton as is,
[00:06:40.920]for harvesting, hauling and packing,
[00:06:43.020]and then subtract out the shrink.
[00:06:44.960]I didn't get this number changed.
[00:06:46.500]This is probably a little high for this area.
[00:06:48.800]This was more summer of '23, but if you use this as an example,
[00:06:54.800]corn price in the fall times 7.65,
[00:06:58.740]you get 39, almost $40 a ton.
[00:07:01.280]Add $10 to harvest, haul it and pack it,
[00:07:04.880]gets you to almost $50 a ton.
[00:07:07.420]Take that on a dry matter conversion,
[00:07:09.380]gets you 142.45, and then add in the shrink.
[00:07:13.580]So if you're at 10% shrink,
[00:07:15.580]your actual cost feeding out of the pit is 158.28.
[00:07:19.020]If you're at 15% shrink,
[00:07:21.120]your cost feeding out of the pit is 167.58.
[00:07:24.560]So shrink has a major impact on the cost that it's actually,
[00:07:28.600]that you're paying to deliver it into the bunk.
[00:07:31.560]Okay, the other thing that I think is really important
[00:07:33.940]is why are you feeding silage, okay?
[00:07:37.280]Probably either energy.
[00:07:40.000]In most cases, we're feeding silage as an energy source.
[00:07:43.180]Maybe we're feeding it as a roughage source.
[00:07:45.380]Okay, so there's a lot of options out here.
[00:07:48.520]I like to include Sandhills Range,
[00:07:51.060]just so when I talk to, well, Sandhills ranchers,
[00:07:54.320]I can describe to them how expensive their forage is.
[00:07:57.520]But the idea is to convert any of these
[00:08:01.200]from an as-ton or bushel or AUM in this case
[00:08:06.200]to a dry matter ton.
[00:08:08.040]Okay, so we're gonna start by comparing them
[00:08:09.660]on a dry matter ton.
[00:08:11.000]Obviously, you just need to know dry matter
[00:08:12.400]for most of these ingredients.
[00:08:14.240]Most of us are probably pretty good
[00:08:15.300]at converting bushels into dry matter.
[00:08:17.400]An animal unit month, so this is the cost per month
[00:08:21.480]to run a cow-calf pair, our assumption is
[00:08:24.080]1.3 animal units, so 1,300 pounds out there
[00:08:28.020]and a 90% dry matter to get that to 162.06.
[00:08:32.820]Interestingly, my observation,
[00:08:34.460]since I've been doing these calculations,
[00:08:36.560]is that the price of Sandhills range
[00:08:39.300]actually follows the price of grass hay pretty closely.
[00:08:43.100]Okay, those two seem to be linked together.
[00:08:45.160]Okay, but we're not feeding it for dry matter, right?
[00:08:47.500]It has a nutrient purpose in the diet, okay?
[00:08:51.880]I think in terms of TDN,
[00:08:53.840]Zach probably thinks in terms of NEM and NEG,
[00:08:56.280]I don't care what nutrient you think on,
[00:08:58.780]but you need to convert this dry matter ton
[00:09:01.920]to its cost per unit of energy.
[00:09:04.280]So this number should be taken 162.06 divided by 0.63.
[00:09:09.280]And this is, instead of per ton, this is per 100 weight,
[00:09:12.980]just so we have numbers
[00:09:14.080]that are a little bit easier to consume.
[00:09:16.460]And then you can compare all of your forage or grains
[00:09:21.460]on a per unit of energy basis.
[00:09:23.600]And this is probably the best way
[00:09:25.480]when you're making decisions
[00:09:27.220]to determine which feeding ingredients fit.
[00:09:29.960]Again, I've got corn silage in here twice.
[00:09:33.880]Most of the time, the price moving into the summer and fall,
[00:09:38.880]so if you're harvesting September one,
[00:09:42.300]or first two weeks of September,
[00:09:44.600]that corn price has not yet started to come down
[00:09:47.460]because new crop corn hasn't started to come in.
[00:09:50.480]Okay, so most of the time,
[00:09:53.360]corn price is probably going to move in your favor
[00:09:58.120]if you price it at the time of harvest.
[00:10:01.240]This year, it didn't move in your favor, okay?
[00:10:05.500]If you priced it in the fall,
[00:10:06.860]and this is a little bit,
[00:10:07.960]'cause I used the 5/21 versus 4/40,
[00:10:11.180]I believe is what I used here,
[00:10:13.040]but those aren't necessarily the same thing.
[00:10:15.080]Again, the strategy that you use to price,
[00:10:17.840]whether that's on an annual average basis,
[00:10:20.060]or if that's at the time of harvest, matters,
[00:10:23.120]and it can have a pretty big impact
[00:10:25.120]on what your actual dollars per unit of energy is.
[00:10:28.780]Does that make sense?
[00:10:29.660]So getting that pricing right is really important.
[00:10:33.020]Okay, so corn silage, and we'll use the current pricing,
[00:10:36.960]'cause I think that's a little bit more realistic,
[00:10:38.860]is actually very competitive, except for a couple of cases.
[00:10:43.860]Okay, right now, and modified's been pretty cheap
[00:10:48.100]the last time that I looked,
[00:10:49.120]this was the weekly ethanol report is of June 14th,
[00:10:52.880]modified's actually a pretty good buy,
[00:10:55.140]not gonna beat modified distillers grains,
[00:10:57.360]we're never gonna beat grazed corn residue,
[00:11:00.280]and in this instance, it's not gonna compare
[00:11:04.280]to baled corn residue, but we can't get three pounds
[00:11:07.140]of gain on baled corn residue either.
[00:11:09.620]Okay, why else do we feed it?
[00:11:12.520]We feed it as a roughage source, right?
[00:11:14.140]So this is the same concept, dollars per hundred weight
[00:11:17.260]of NDF, and I only charged half of the silage price,
[00:11:22.640]and it's the same, we had a pricing discussion.
[00:11:25.180]Zach, you talked about taking the corn
[00:11:27.720]and charging the corn that you're harvesting
[00:11:30.280]as corn price and the forage that you're harvesting
[00:11:33.540]and comparing that, and that's what I've done here, okay?
[00:11:36.180]Also very competitive, again,
[00:11:38.160]with the exception of baled corn residue,
[00:11:40.280]but relative to grass or alfalfa,
[00:11:41.800]kind of the old gold standards,
[00:11:43.600]very competitive pricing on a roughage source.
[00:11:46.760]Okay, so how does this stuff integrate then
[00:11:49.760]into our production system?
[00:11:51.220]So we're gonna start talking about
[00:11:52.400]how calf production systems, quite frankly,
[00:11:54.560]this is the hardest because it's the most diverse.
[00:11:57.480]Okay, so there's a lot of,
[00:11:58.560]everybody has their own way of doing things.
[00:12:00.820]They have their own production system.
[00:12:03.100]This is how I think when I think about
[00:12:06.560]nutrient requirements for a cow.
[00:12:08.160]I think about her annual production cycle.
[00:12:10.700]Okay, so we'll start at calving.
[00:12:12.100]In most cases, you've got 82 days, theoretically,
[00:12:16.480]or roughly three months that are really critical.
[00:12:19.240]What's happening in this time?
[00:12:21.100]She's calved.
[00:12:22.160]Her lactation energy requirements for lactation
[00:12:25.000]are as high as they will be at any time,
[00:12:27.880]and we're asking her to get bred again.
[00:12:30.040]Okay, so this is the most critical time
[00:12:32.780]from a nutrient standpoint.
[00:12:34.620]And then after she's bred until weaning,
[00:12:37.320]she's still lactating,
[00:12:38.700]but that milk production is coming down,
[00:12:40.740]so her energy requirements are going down.
[00:12:43.500]And then weaning, this is kind of the sweet spot.
[00:12:45.540]You can cut a little bit on nutrients.
[00:12:48.700]You can maybe get her body condition back in shape,
[00:12:50.860]whatever needs to be done.
[00:12:51.920]From weaning to calving, and that's
[00:12:53.540]about a five-month process.
[00:12:56.160]OK, here's the challenge with using silage in cow diets.
[00:13:00.460]It's too good.
[00:13:02.420]The energy density of silage is too good for a cow
[00:13:06.800]based on how much she wants to eat.
[00:13:10.800]So if you're going to use silage in a cow system,
[00:13:13.480]you're probably going to either have
[00:13:15.060]to dilute that with a lower quality feed
[00:13:18.020]to dilute the energy, or you're going
[00:13:20.000]to have to ask her to do what I don't want
[00:13:21.680]to do and go on a diet.
[00:13:23.800]Limit feeder.
[00:13:25.040]So what affects intake in cows?
[00:13:28.960]So intake energy requirements, there's more on the list,
[00:13:32.560]but these are the major components.
[00:13:33.940]Body weight size is important.
[00:13:36.440]Her stage of lactation and her potential milk production
[00:13:39.240]are major energy requirements.
[00:13:40.860]And then the conceptus, also the growth of the conceptus
[00:13:43.460]if she's pregnant is a major intake requirement.
[00:13:47.660]I guess the reason that I match these up is that--
[00:13:51.440]what affects intake capacity, how much she has--
[00:13:55.200]how much capacity she has to eat?
[00:13:57.740]Largely the same thing.
[00:13:59.640]Her ability to eat, especially if you think in terms of a percent of body weight,
[00:14:03.500]is affected by her body weight size, whether or not she's lactating.
[00:14:07.500]That's an extra energy demand, which will increase her intake.
[00:14:10.640]The size of the conceptus, which physically takes up space inside,
[00:14:14.240]and so she has less volume to be able to consume.
[00:14:17.540]And then on the intake side, large differences
[00:14:21.200]in forage quality.
[00:14:22.440]OK, so lower forage quality, limited passage rate,
[00:14:26.300]which you correctly assessed earlier,
[00:14:29.840]the less she's going to be able to eat.
[00:14:32.100]OK, so this is some slides from Travis Mullenix
[00:14:35.660]that I really like.
[00:14:36.960]This is on a 1,200 pound cow, assuming a 23 pound per day
[00:14:41.240]peak milk lactation for milk production.
[00:14:44.540]This is what her energy requirements
[00:14:47.340]throughout the months from the time of calving that a cow has
[00:14:50.960]and this is how I look at those.
[00:14:53.420]Okay, so during those first three months,
[00:14:55.600]she's hitting peak lactation and re-breeding.
[00:14:58.620]That's kind of the maximum energy requirements.
[00:15:01.020]And then she's got four months where she's nursing a calf,
[00:15:04.720]but that calf is consuming some forage on its own.
[00:15:08.720]And so her requirements are going down
[00:15:11.220]and then they kind of bottom out.
[00:15:12.720]And then after she's bred and that conceptus grows,
[00:15:15.460]they start creeping back up again over those five months.
[00:15:18.620]But I kind of take the energy requirements
[00:15:20.720]of a cow into those three chunks.
[00:15:23.660]Okay, some things that we know, this is not news to anyone,
[00:15:28.220]a larger cow's gonna eat more.
[00:15:30.220]Okay, so five to 600 pound increase
[00:15:32.800]in annual dry matter intake with every pound of increase,
[00:15:35.600]100 pound body weight increase.
[00:15:37.880]This is why if you're in the Sandhills,
[00:15:39.180]you want an 1,100 pound cow.
[00:15:41.600]If you're in South Central Michigan,
[00:15:43.940]you're probably happy with a 1,500 pound cow
[00:15:45.680]based on the forage availability, right?
[00:15:48.540]So different systems require different sizes.
[00:15:50.480]So we'll accept that cow size affects forage intake,
[00:15:56.360]but in addition to that, the TDN of the diet, right?
[00:16:00.380]So lower quality forage, lower passage rate,
[00:16:03.020]able to consume less dry matter.
[00:16:04.720]So this is dry matter intake as a percent of body weight.
[00:16:07.840]So you might be under 2%, 1.75% on low TDN diets.
[00:16:12.000]And you're up here, right?
[00:16:13.440]I use 70 as a TDN for silage.
[00:16:16.240]So you're really up here closer to two,
[00:16:18.580]two and a half percent of her body weight
[00:16:20.240]that she's able to consume on a high silage diet.
[00:16:23.380]In addition, stage of lactation,
[00:16:27.220]so late gestation, conceptus is large.
[00:16:31.760]That shrinks her dry matter intake ability
[00:16:34.360]as a function of her body weight.
[00:16:36.060]Early lactation, metabolic system is really ramped up,
[00:16:39.560]so that increases it up to 2.5% of the body weight.
[00:16:42.520]And then late lactation, as that comes back down,
[00:16:45.060]her intake comes back down.
[00:16:47.960]Okay.
[00:16:50.000]Based on forage quality, then, for a dry and a lactating cow,
[00:16:53.100]this is the forage capacity.
[00:16:55.080]This data is quite old.
[00:16:57.200]I think it's even about as old as I am.
[00:17:00.320]But as a percent of body weight, these estimates still stand.
[00:17:05.680]So, we'll go all the way down here.
[00:17:07.220]These are lower quality forages.
[00:17:09.120]High quality forages, 2.5% to 2.7% for silages,
[00:17:14.020]percent of body weight.
[00:17:17.760]This is what drives the AUM system.
[00:17:19.760]I don't want to turn this into a range discussion,
[00:17:23.100]but what is an AUM?
[00:17:27.860]Animal Unit Month, how much forage is that?
[00:17:31.780]For a 1,000-pound animal, one AUM is 780 pounds
[00:17:36.140]of air-dried forage.
[00:17:38.140]If you take 1,000 pounds divided by 30,
[00:17:44.420]divided by 780, you'll get to 2.6%.
[00:17:49.520]So 1 AUM assumes 2.6% of body weight dry matter intake.
[00:17:57.420]Okay, so these data match that system quite well.
[00:18:01.000]It doesn't work as well with lower-quality forages,
[00:18:03.400]by the way.
[00:18:04.840]Okay, so here's really the point,
[00:18:06.640]and I've already told you this.
[00:18:08.380]If you're going to use silage in a cow-calf system,
[00:18:11.580]you need to limit feeder, or you're going to have
[00:18:13.980]to dilute the silage with a lower-quality forage.
[00:18:17.140]Okay, so using those three --
[00:18:19.280]different segments of her annual production cycle --
[00:18:22.680]Sam, I don't mean to ignore you over here.
[00:18:24.860]Using those three different segments
[00:18:26.620]of her annual production cycle, I've estimated,
[00:18:28.980]based on energy requirements, the pounds of silage
[00:18:31.960]that she would need to meet her energy, and the pounds
[00:18:35.460]of silage that she will want, using the data
[00:18:38.240]that I just showed you to estimate her intake
[00:18:40.240]as a percent of body weight.
[00:18:41.500]This is of a 1,200-pound cow.
[00:18:43.900]Right, so she needs to eat -- from calving to breeding,
[00:18:47.080]she needs to eat 22.9.
[00:18:49.040]She wants to eat 31.
[00:18:51.400]Breeding to weaning, she wants to eat -- we'll call that 19.
[00:18:54.780]Or she needs to eat 19.
[00:18:57.440]She wants to eat 31.
[00:18:59.320]What's the point?
[00:19:00.520]What happens if you let her eat all she wants to?
[00:19:05.160]She's going to get fat.
[00:19:06.560]If you feed silage to cows, ad libitum,
[00:19:08.960]they're going to get fat.
[00:19:10.600]Okay, and that's not good from an economic standpoint
[00:19:12.760]or from a reproductive standpoint.
[00:19:15.460]Okay, I will tell you that, you know,
[00:19:18.800]we've done about 10 years' worth of work
[00:19:22.800]where we had cows in confinement.
[00:19:26.100]Cows have been in confinement in the winter
[00:19:27.980]from here north forever, right?
[00:19:30.820]We decided that we'd start confining them in the summer
[00:19:33.520]instead of in the winter down here.
[00:19:35.720]So this is not a new concept, but this is from a project
[00:19:40.460]where cows were limit-fed, and they were consuming
[00:19:45.000]either silage and residue or distiller's grains,
[00:19:48.560]so the diet changed from year to year,
[00:19:50.720]but they were limit-fed in the pen
[00:19:53.640]to meet their energy requirements.
[00:19:56.360]The traditional system, they were out grazing pasture.
[00:19:59.300]And I had one person that's pretty bright
[00:20:03.200]and I have a lot of respect for who looked at this data
[00:20:05.940]and said, "Well, Jim, if you limit-feed cows,
[00:20:08.840]they reduce body condition score."
[00:20:10.320]And I said, "Well, technically that's true,
[00:20:12.620]but you've got to focus in just a little bit closer.
[00:20:15.760]What is the optimal body condition score for a cow?"
[00:20:18.320]Optimal body condition score for a cow is a five.
[00:20:23.620]That is right there.
[00:20:25.000]If we limit- and this is a histogram, right?
[00:20:26.860]So if we limit-feed them, that means that between 60
[00:20:30.600]and 65% of those cows were a body condition score of five.
[00:20:34.160]Not 100% of them, but most
[00:20:36.300]of them were a body condition score of five.
[00:20:38.980]So- and then, you know, you had some cows
[00:20:41.080]that probably ate more than their share.
[00:20:43.420]Versus cows that are out grazing on pasture.
[00:20:48.080]What does that histogram look like?
[00:20:49.840]You got everything from a four and a half all the way
[00:20:52.320]up to an eight, right?
[00:20:54.860]And a lot more spread out, okay?
[00:20:58.120]So if we're limit feeding cows using a silage-based diet,
[00:21:02.460]we can actually make their body condition score more uniform.
[00:21:05.600]Of course, they stare at you angrily every time you go
[00:21:09.260]by with the feed truck, right?
[00:21:10.340]They're kind of mad at you, but they'll get over it.
[00:21:12.000]It's okay.
[00:21:13.200]Okay, and then, I guess just to further prove the point,
[00:21:17.840]we turned those cows out on oats, grazing oats in the fall,
[00:21:22.140]so a double crop annual forage or a cover crop.
[00:21:25.740]And so, these are the exact same cows.
[00:21:27.880]What happened?
[00:21:28.420]When they had free access to forage,
[00:21:30.060]what happened to their body condition scores?
[00:21:32.920]They spread out, right, where they didn't look any different
[00:21:35.720]than the cows that were grazing summer range, okay?
[00:21:39.020]So, cows will adapt to the system if you limit feed them,
[00:21:43.660]but you got to stick to your guns.
[00:21:47.600]You know, cow guys kind of like to feed cows.
[00:21:51.300]They don't-- they like happy cows, right?
[00:21:54.340]It can be hard for people to really limit feed cows mentally.
[00:21:59.040]I guess that's just the easiest way to say it.
[00:22:01.120]You got to stick to your guns.
[00:22:03.620]The other issue in this system is if you're limit feeding cows
[00:22:06.760]and if you have calves by their side, you got
[00:22:09.120]to remember the calves in confinement in those systems,
[00:22:12.460]okay, and so I just bring this out.
[00:22:14.220]Two major issues is calves getting stuck at the bunk
[00:22:16.900]or getting crushed
[00:22:17.600]at the bunk because you're limit feeding them
[00:22:19.340]and cows are going to go eat.
[00:22:20.340]So you got to have plenty of bunk space,
[00:22:22.300]probably different bunk space, that's what this picture is.
[00:22:26.500]Only the calves could get into this particular piece
[00:22:29.080]to avoid them getting crushed alongside mom in the bunk.
[00:22:32.480]And then the other issue is remember they also have a water
[00:22:34.820]requirement and so making sure that they have access
[00:22:37.420]to clean, fresh water.
[00:22:39.980]Okay, moving into backgrounding systems then.
[00:22:42.600]Again, diverse systems, but I think silage fits,
[00:22:47.000]you know Galen asked me to rank where do you think it fits best
[00:22:50.600]in the beef complex and I think pretty easily if I were
[00:22:54.500]to prioritize the use of silage it would be
[00:22:56.440]in backgrounding systems.
[00:22:58.140]The thing that you have to remember about growing calves is
[00:23:01.620]that they have a protein requirement that cannot be met
[00:23:04.460]by bacterial protein, right?
[00:23:06.380]So most people understand that during fermentation you have
[00:23:09.620]bacterial growth, those bacteria get into the small intestine,
[00:23:13.300]they're digested and those amino acids are absorbed.
[00:23:15.520]And that works really well
[00:23:17.000]for a mature cow.
[00:23:18.960]Does not work as well for a growing calf,
[00:23:22.500]so I have a 15-year-old son at home.
[00:23:24.640]Literally, we took him, we took our kids
[00:23:27.380]to the College World Series last night and I spent, I swear,
[00:23:30.520]I think we spent $70 at the concession stand
[00:23:33.280]and he came home and he said, "I'm hungry
[00:23:35.680]because I haven't had anything real to eat today."
[00:23:37.720]And I'm like, "What about the $70 that we just spent at the?"
[00:23:41.500]And what he meant was he hadn't had protein.
[00:23:45.960]So.
[00:23:47.000]I'm not going to lie, sometimes we have to feed him pork chops
[00:23:49.160]because we can't afford to feed him beef all the time.
[00:23:52.000]That kid will sit down and eat three or four
[00:23:54.140]in a sitting without any problem.
[00:23:55.440]He has just a huge demand for amino acids right now
[00:23:58.480]because of growth.
[00:23:59.780]Newly weaned calves in a backgrounding system have
[00:24:02.380]that same demand.
[00:24:03.820]And it cannot be met by bacterial protein
[00:24:07.380]because they can't eat enough.
[00:24:09.260]Okay. So the things that limit fermentable energy
[00:24:11.900]to produce bacterial crude protein are situations
[00:24:14.760]where cattle can't eat enough or if their acids
[00:24:17.000]are not acidotic.
[00:24:17.940]These calves are not acidotic,
[00:24:19.060]but they just simply cannot eat enough
[00:24:21.000]to create enough bacterial protein
[00:24:22.680]to meet their amino acid requirement.
[00:24:24.900]So we supplement rumen undergradable protein.
[00:24:27.740]And again, I'll refer you back to probably 2016.
[00:24:32.040]I'm looking for Galen because he may remember the year.
[00:24:35.480]Silage Conference, Dr. Andrea Watson presented these data
[00:24:38.380]back then, but she did a really nice job over two studies.
[00:24:40.960]So there's two lines here because there's two studies
[00:24:43.800]where she defined the RUP requirement.
[00:24:46.900]of calves consuming an 85% silage diet
[00:24:50.680]at about seven and a half percent of the diet dry matter.
[00:24:54.830]Most of the time,
[00:24:56.370]distillers grains is the easiest way
[00:24:59.470]to meet that RUP requirement,
[00:25:01.190]a metabolizable protein requirement,
[00:25:03.310]and about 15% distillers grains is where that was met.
[00:25:07.570]So Zach alluded to this earlier,
[00:25:09.790]but an 85% silage diet with 15% distillers grains
[00:25:14.690]works really, really nicely in backgrounding systems.
[00:25:20.430]So what type of performance can you expect?
[00:25:24.230]And so what I've done is just summarize data
[00:25:26.650]from the literature.
[00:25:27.890]Some of these studies were from Dr. Watson's analysis
[00:25:33.350]that you just saw.
[00:25:34.790]So here we have the percent of the silage in the diet.
[00:25:37.590]So 80 to 90% silage in all cases here.
[00:25:42.330]An attempt to use combination of soybean meal and urea
[00:25:47.070]or just urea or soybean meal
[00:25:50.190]or distillers grains and all of these would have had
[00:25:53.110]either soy pass which is a non-enzymatically bound
[00:25:55.550]soybean meal or Imperial which is a Cargill product
[00:25:58.390]from the wet milling industry
[00:26:00.190]which is really high in concentrated protein.
[00:26:03.110]I had these stars are really important here
[00:26:04.930]because these are the studies in which
[00:26:08.430]the metabolizable protein requirement was met.
[00:26:10.830]And I will bring your eyes all the way down to the bottom
[00:26:14.790]for the feed to gain.
[00:26:16.410]Of course there's no statistical analysis, right?
[00:26:18.470]So these are just published research.
[00:26:19.950]These are just the research studies.
[00:26:21.090]But I will break the feed conversion here
[00:26:24.330]for the studies in which soybean meal and urea,
[00:26:27.710]which do not provide RUP for metabolizable protein,
[00:26:32.170]look at those feed conversions,
[00:26:33.810]and then look at the feed conversions
[00:26:35.670]where cattle had adequate metabolizable protein.
[00:26:39.430]Okay, you can see a distinct difference between those two.
[00:26:42.170]The other reason that I wanted to put this up
[00:26:43.890]just to show you was the expected,
[00:26:46.170]of course there's some difference,
[00:26:47.210]there's some variation in initial body weight here,
[00:26:49.710]there's some variation in dry matter intake,
[00:26:51.670]but just the expected difference in dry matter intake
[00:26:54.110]and then average daily gains.
[00:26:57.190]Okay, very easily you can get two and a half,
[00:26:59.390]three pounds a day on a high side, 85% silage diet.
[00:27:03.350]Probably three pounds a day is what I would expect.
[00:27:06.350]The question is, is that too much?
[00:27:09.230]It probably depends on the system.
[00:27:11.390]Okay, so if those calves are getting fleshy,
[00:27:14.270]if they're getting fat, they may receive a discount
[00:27:16.510]if they're being sold.
[00:27:18.030]If they're retained
[00:27:19.470]and you're feeding them out, I don't think I care, right?
[00:27:23.750]It's okay to fatten them slowly.
[00:27:26.210]The other thing that I would point out,
[00:27:29.050]oftentimes we hear people in backgrounding systems say,
[00:27:33.350]well, I don't want them to gain too much
[00:27:35.410]because they'll make it up later, right?
[00:27:37.650]The concept of compensatory gain.
[00:27:39.750]And I've spent a significant amount of my career trying
[00:27:43.090]to study and understand compensatory gain.
[00:27:45.870]And what I would tell you is that compensation is never 100%
[00:27:49.230]It is never 100%.
[00:27:52.910]Okay, and so this is a study where we targeted either a pound
[00:27:58.070]and a quarter or two pounds per day during the winter.
[00:28:01.010]And then looked at the economics across a 20-year timeframe.
[00:28:05.350]And looked at the advantage of targeting two pounds a day
[00:28:08.750]versus a pound and a quarter during the winter.
[00:28:11.050]And what did that have on profitability?
[00:28:13.350]Okay, on average, 24 bucks.
[00:28:16.830]And it was profitable, the additional investment
[00:28:18.990]in energy and protein during the winter
[00:28:22.190]was profitable 15 out of 20 years.
[00:28:25.370]Okay, so I'm not a limit gain enthusiast
[00:28:29.570]in hopes that they're going to make it up later.
[00:28:31.510]I'll skip that and we'll move into finishing systems.
[00:28:37.310]Okay, feeding silage or feeding high silage
[00:28:40.770]in finishing systems is not a new concept.
[00:28:43.150]Back in the 1970s, Goodrich, who was at the University of
[00:28:48.750]Minnesota, fed 85% silage diets,
[00:28:53.050]and he finished cattle on those.
[00:28:54.790]Galen's not quite that old, but this blue line is from
[00:29:00.470]Dr. Erickson's PhD dissertation back in 2000,
[00:29:05.470]and you can see from zero to 30% silage,
[00:29:08.670]a decline in feed efficiency.
[00:29:10.810]He didn't know as much then as he does today.
[00:29:13.950]He's not even in the room for me to pick on.
[00:29:18.510]Dirk Birkin was a PhD student of his
[00:29:21.010]and fed up to 45% silage in finishing diets
[00:29:25.690]with distillers grains,
[00:29:27.290]and you can see the decline in feed efficiency
[00:29:29.790]doesn't match up.
[00:29:30.830]Of course, those were two very different timeframes.
[00:29:33.330]And so Galen's done a lot of work over the years
[00:29:36.790]looking at how much distillers grains is required
[00:29:39.930]if you're going to feed high silage diets.
[00:29:43.170]So 15% is what we would consider normal.
[00:29:46.230]The reason we would consider that to be normal
[00:29:48.270]is that's a 7.5% roughage inclusion in the diet.
[00:29:52.170]Some of you would disagree with that.
[00:29:54.610]I'm looking at Alan, I don't know that that's his philosophy,
[00:29:56.750]but some nutritionists would bring that down
[00:29:58.750]to 7.5% or 10% silage in the diet as a roughage source,
[00:30:03.050]but the NDF content of the silage would argue for about 15%.
[00:30:08.050]Versus 45%.
[00:30:10.030]Okay, and so long yearlings,
[00:30:12.690]this is Dirk Berken's PhD work, a reduction in...
[00:30:18.030]feed efficiency, but that reduction was much smaller.
[00:30:22.030]If you had 40% modified distillers grains,
[00:30:25.030]and then they repeated it and it was a little bit more consistent.
[00:30:28.030]So 12.7, I'm putting these numbers up here
[00:30:30.030]because you're going to see something similar in just a minute.
[00:30:33.030]But a 12.7 reduction in feed efficiency at 20% modified,
[00:30:38.030]and 3.9 to 5.4 with 40% modified.
[00:30:43.030]Okay, so there was an interaction here between the two studies.
[00:30:46.030]If you're going to use feed efficiency,
[00:30:47.790]if you're going to use 45% silage diets in finishing systems,
[00:30:52.790]the feed efficiency is going to go down.
[00:30:54.790]That doesn't mean that they made less money.
[00:30:57.790]Okay, so this is Hannah Wilson.
[00:30:59.790]Raise your hand, Hannah.
[00:31:01.790]She doesn't care about this anymore because she works for Cargill now,
[00:31:04.790]but this was part of her Ph.D. dissertation,
[00:31:07.790]comparing 15% and 45% modified distillers grains with 20% --
[00:31:12.790]I'm sorry, 15% to 45% silage with 20% modified distillers grains.
[00:31:17.550]Calf feds, so they were on feed.
[00:31:19.550]So you'll notice that the 45% silage cattle were fed longer.
[00:31:23.550]That's also a necessity.
[00:31:25.550]But they were heavier at the end as well.
[00:31:28.550]So they ate more, they gained just a little bit less,
[00:31:33.550]and they were less efficient.
[00:31:35.550]The reason I pointed this out in the previous slide,
[00:31:38.550]with 20% distillers grains,
[00:31:40.550]Hannah's data actually matched Birkin's first data set better than his second data set,
[00:31:47.310]with a 4.8% reduction in feed efficiency.
[00:31:50.310]So Hannah, I'm sure you would argue for that greater interaction, right?
[00:31:54.310]Okay, hot carcass weight, more carcass weight.
[00:31:57.310]And this is really what's driving profitability.
[00:32:01.310]No difference in marbling, a little bit higher yield grade, no difference in dress.
[00:32:05.310]But the biggest difference to get them to the same fat endpoint is it takes more days,
[00:32:09.310]and so you end up with more carcass weight.
[00:32:11.310]Hannah also had Tylosin in the diet as a factor.
[00:32:17.070]Corn silage without any Tylosin.
[00:32:18.830]These are liver abscesses, so she had about 35% liver abscesses.
[00:32:22.650]That would match the historical data quite nicely.
[00:32:25.550]When she added Tylosin to the diet, that reduced to 19%.
[00:32:30.730]So a reduction.
[00:32:31.730]And then when you add 45% corn silage, it didn't matter if you had Tylosin.
[00:32:35.830]Basically, if you have that much silage in the diet, you're not going to experience as
[00:32:39.030]much acidosis.
[00:32:40.390]That's going to reduce liver abscesses.
[00:32:42.370]Probably don't even need Tylosin at that point.
[00:32:44.490]Okay.
[00:32:45.490]And then this is her estimate of profitability.
[00:32:46.830]The interaction here was 0.14, so I'll let you think about whether that's meaningful
[00:32:52.930]or not.
[00:32:53.930]But the 15 percent corn silage diet without Tylosin, so you have -- this is with the higher
[00:32:58.590]liver abscesses, lost about 10 bucks, and there's statistically no difference between
[00:33:02.670]these three, the traditional diet or the 45 without Tylosin.
[00:33:07.430]So profitability at least similar to a traditional system using 45 percent silage.
[00:33:13.930]Okay.
[00:33:14.930]Last topic then.
[00:33:16.590]This is a big picture.
[00:33:18.050]The additional growing degree days from when you harvest silage give you a good opportunity
[00:33:24.370]to come in with a secondary forage crop.
[00:33:26.350]And we've worked with this.
[00:33:27.350]Mary Tronowski's not here today, but she's been a good collaborator, in fact, is doing
[00:33:31.190]more of this today than I am.
[00:33:33.570]This is a project that I started in the fall of 2013.
[00:33:37.370]This was a corn-soybean rotation.
[00:33:40.170]This is harvested as high-moisture corn, did it as high-moisture corn to get as many growing
[00:33:44.950]degree days as we can.
[00:33:46.350]Or, the corn was harvested as silage, and then we went back in and we planted oats.
[00:33:52.710]I shouldn't admit this, but 2013 was the first year that I moved back from Texas, and I had
[00:33:57.390]done six years of wheat pasture research, and so I tried wheat.
[00:34:01.310]Turns out there's a reason people don't do that in Nebraska, it didn't work.
[00:34:04.670]But oats works okay.
[00:34:07.190]So the additional growing degree days, and I'll quantify this for you, but you can see
[00:34:11.430]we have substantially more growth in the silage field than we do in the high-moisture corn
[00:34:16.110]field.
[00:34:17.110]Okay, so Mary and Darren Redfern put this together.
[00:34:20.670]The different lines here are different parts, different areas of the state.
[00:34:25.310]Southeast looks pretty good.
[00:34:27.090]The others are pretty close in terms of growing degree days.
[00:34:30.230]And then this is the potential for additional crop based on -- a forage crop based on what
[00:34:35.750]you're harvesting.
[00:34:36.750]So winter wheat, seed corn works quite well.
[00:34:39.150]Corn silage works okay.
[00:34:40.950]Corn and soybeans, it's a little bit late.
[00:34:42.410]You just don't have enough growing degree days left.
[00:34:45.390]If you want to put in rye.
[00:34:45.870]For spring, that probably works okay.
[00:34:48.270]I'm really interested in a fall crop because I want to receive calves onto that fall crop.
[00:34:53.150]That works really, really well from a system standpoint.
[00:34:56.050]Okay, so we grazed those fields in a corn soybean rotation.
[00:35:02.310]So the idea was that we were going to receive calves on there.
[00:35:06.950]This is from the forage crop following corn silage or from the forage crop following high
[00:35:11.530]moisture corn.
[00:35:13.030]And you can see we got a nice gain response.
[00:35:15.630]This is probably not feasible.
[00:35:17.510]This is probably economically feasible over about a 30-day window.
[00:35:23.630]Gained a couple pounds a day.
[00:35:25.330]Got about a ton of biomass versus about a half a ton of biomass per acre.
[00:35:30.970]These are the difference in the growing degree days.
[00:35:33.350]And we're also interested in the agronomic component.
[00:35:36.050]I'm not going to show those data to you, but worked with soil scientists to really quantify
[00:35:42.090]what's the impact of the cover crop and do you lose the benefit of the cover crop.
[00:35:45.390]And if you're working with farmers, right, so if you want access to their land and that
[00:35:53.110]forage crop, or if you're doing it yourself, the first question that you have to ask is
[00:35:57.210]why are you putting in a cover crop?
[00:35:59.990]If you're putting in a cover crop to increase soil organic carbon, soil organic matter,
[00:36:05.190]that comes from the roots.
[00:36:07.090]And whether you graze it or you hay it or you leave it, the roots are still there.
[00:36:12.550]So no change in soil organic carbon.
[00:36:15.150]The change in soil organic carbon.
[00:36:17.810]If you're putting in a cover crop to reduce erosion, so if you're on a side hill and you
[00:36:22.550]want to reduce erosion by putting in a cover crop, if you remove that cover crop either
[00:36:26.030]by grazing or haying, you have lost the benefit of the soil protection.
[00:36:30.230]Does that make sense?
[00:36:31.230]So it really depends why are you putting in the cover crop, whether or not cattle or livestock
[00:36:36.270]integrate well into that.
[00:36:38.350]So obviously, more cover here primarily based on the corn residue as much as it is the forage
[00:36:44.910]crop.
[00:36:46.710]And then we also looked at subsequent soybean production.
[00:36:49.550]So this was in a corn-soybean rotation.
[00:36:52.730]And we found an interaction.
[00:36:55.010]So let me explain the treatments to you.
[00:36:57.450]This is corn silage, no cover-- sorry, this is grazed cover.
[00:37:03.370]This is a cover crop that was not grazed.
[00:37:05.710]And this is no cover, no grazed.
[00:37:09.230]And so no cover, no grazed.
[00:37:11.190]After corn silage, that actually gave us the best soybean yield.
[00:37:14.670]This is after high moisture corn.
[00:37:16.890]So cover grazed, cover no grazed, no cover, no grazed.
[00:37:20.970]So we've spent a lot of time thinking about why
[00:37:24.270]we observed this interaction.
[00:37:26.350]We did this, again, for six years.
[00:37:28.110]And so it was twice every plot of land
[00:37:30.630]went through three times of soybean production.
[00:37:34.070]So there's a pretty good amount of data here.
[00:37:36.030]We actually see this same thing with grazing corn residue.
[00:37:41.070]We see about a two bushel to the acre bump
[00:37:44.430]in soybean production if we remove the residue.
[00:37:49.150]Well, what do you do when you produce corn silage?
[00:37:52.150]You remove the residue.
[00:37:53.950]So the no cover, no graze from the high moisture corn
[00:37:57.670]where you have residue left on the field,
[00:37:59.970]if you remove that residue and you don't put a cover crop
[00:38:02.790]in it, you get a yield bump on your soybeans.
[00:38:05.370]And talk about hills to die on, I'll
[00:38:09.810]at least take a significant wound on this hill.
[00:38:13.550]Because we've seen it.
[00:38:14.190]We've seen it over and over and over again.
[00:38:16.690]OK, now I've added a cover crop, and things
[00:38:20.070]get a little bit messier, right?
[00:38:22.270]So regardless of whether or not I graze,
[00:38:25.930]there's still quite a bit of cover, right?
[00:38:27.990]Like, where did we see?
[00:38:30.070]93% cover there.
[00:38:31.930]So statistically, we didn't get--
[00:38:34.610]I mean, numerically, we got a little bump.
[00:38:36.590]Statistically, we didn't get any improvement by the cover crop
[00:38:39.150]or by grazing the cover crop.
[00:38:41.210]Same thing if we had a cover crop that we didn't graze.
[00:38:43.950]So all four of these all fit pretty closely, pretty tightly
[00:38:47.370]together.
[00:38:48.210]If we graze that cover crop, it's somewhere in the middle.
[00:38:51.530]We don't get all of the benefit of removing all of the residue,
[00:38:54.470]but it's somewhere in the middle.
[00:38:56.130]And here's the thing that producers, farmers really
[00:38:58.130]want to know.
[00:38:58.730]Are you going to make it worse?
[00:39:00.410]If you take off silage, if you graze off the cover crop,
[00:39:04.610]all of these management things, is it
[00:39:06.730]going to make my soybean yields worse?
[00:39:09.050]And the answer to that is no.
[00:39:11.030]Could, in fact, make it better.
[00:39:13.710]And then we actually-- this is a little getting out there,
[00:39:18.950]because this is two years after the fact, right?
[00:39:20.910]So we harvested silage or high moisture corn,
[00:39:24.730]put these cover crop treatments on top of it.
[00:39:27.170]It went to soybeans, and then this
[00:39:29.290]is the yield of the corn the following year.
[00:39:31.370]Does that make sense?
[00:39:32.690]So this is like two cropping years
[00:39:34.850]after the treatments were applied.
[00:39:37.270]P value is not strong, but if we did
[00:39:40.510]graze the cover crop, our corn silage
[00:39:43.470]yield took a little bit of a hit.
[00:39:45.310]This is not a hill that I'm willing to die on.
[00:39:48.210]I'm not even willing to take a knife nick on this hill.
[00:39:52.690]But that's what the data say.
[00:39:55.230]And then no difference in high moisture corn yield.
[00:39:58.430]So with the exception of this silage yield observation
[00:40:02.490]that we can't really make heads or tails out of,
[00:40:04.730]no negative consequences to adding a fall forage crop
[00:40:09.830]and harvesting it with cattle, letting them graze it on subsequent
[00:40:13.230]soybean yield or subsequent crop.
[00:40:15.590]What about cost of gain?
[00:40:17.530]So these numbers are from 2020, so they're going to look --
[00:40:20.170]you know, you're going to like, yes, I would take this all day.
[00:40:22.030]Well, it's because it's from four years ago.
[00:40:24.070]But what are the costs of a corn silage oat system
[00:40:28.870]versus the high moisture corn oat system?
[00:40:31.110]Obviously, this is not going to look very good
[00:40:32.610]because the cattle didn't perform super well.
[00:40:35.590]So yardage, 455.
[00:40:38.730]I'm just going to summarize the dark here.
[00:40:40.990]The cost of seed and seeding.
[00:40:42.990]Seeding is 27 bucks a head.
[00:40:46.290]Fertilizer, 20 bucks a head.
[00:40:49.790]And then we did charge for the residue
[00:40:51.630]because this is what we would pay commercially.
[00:40:55.570]And then if you get down here to total cost per head
[00:40:58.130]and cost of gain, this is the number that's most important.
[00:41:01.470]At that time, it was about a 50 cent cost of gain on that oats.
[00:41:05.650]And so it's a really good way to receive calves.
[00:41:08.190]And again, I know there's a lot of rye used out there
[00:41:11.790]and a lot of rye systems.
[00:41:12.750]I like the fall system, because that's
[00:41:14.690]where I want to receive calves onto,
[00:41:16.390]even if that's weaning calves that we own.
[00:41:19.390]OK, so Galen asked me to prioritize
[00:41:21.790]how would you use silage.
[00:41:24.290]I don't know that that's how producers think.
[00:41:27.270]Like, I don't know as nutritionists
[00:41:28.590]that you go out there and say, well, you should use silage,
[00:41:30.770]and you shouldn't use silage based on your system.
[00:41:33.310]I think it comes down to what's the cheapest
[00:41:35.670]cost per unit of energy.
[00:41:38.610]But this is how I would prioritize the use.
[00:41:41.150]I think very, very quickly--
[00:41:42.510]very clearly, silage-based diets fit best
[00:41:45.750]into backgrounding systems.
[00:41:46.950]Growing calves make very good use of silage.
[00:41:50.970]Alan, probably some concern early on on intake
[00:41:54.810]as they get used to fermented feeds, right?
[00:41:56.670]So you probably want 100% silage day one may not work well.
[00:42:00.930]But give them a little time to adapt to it,
[00:42:02.850]and they'll do very well, especially
[00:42:04.750]if you get the protein right.
[00:42:07.510]I think there's a lot of opportunity, maybe not
[00:42:09.630]for a 10,000 head feed yard, maybe for a--
[00:42:12.270]2,000, 3,000, 4,000 head feed yard
[00:42:14.610]to feed high silage diets, just based
[00:42:17.110]on the amount of material that you have to have put up
[00:42:20.190]and stored.
[00:42:21.810]But from a profitability standpoint,
[00:42:23.370]I think there's a competitive niche for some producers
[00:42:25.770]there.
[00:42:27.270]I think I would rank cows as number three,
[00:42:30.810]especially 30 days pre-calving to 45 days post-calving,
[00:42:36.810]not only because of the nutrient requirements,
[00:42:38.730]but that is a forage window gap for most producers.
[00:42:42.030]So if you have access to corn stalks
[00:42:44.230]and you're grazing corn stalks in the winter,
[00:42:46.590]a lot of times you have to be off February 15th, which
[00:42:49.690]matches up about a month before calving occurs,
[00:42:52.490]and you're ready to go to grass May 1, which is about 45 days
[00:42:55.930]after you start calving.
[00:42:57.490]So there is a natural forage gap in that system at that time,
[00:43:01.610]and I think silage fits that gap quite nicely.
[00:43:04.430]And I don't know of tonnage.
[00:43:07.130]This may be the most common use of silage,
[00:43:09.170]but that's actually-- sorry, Galen-- the lowest
[00:43:11.790]priority that I have, and that goes back to the fact
[00:43:14.850]that we can use corn--
[00:43:16.170]baled corn residue in finishing diets pretty well,
[00:43:21.330]and it's actually cheaper per unit of roughage
[00:43:23.250]or cheaper per unit of NDF.
[00:43:25.030]So I don't think it competes quite as well in traditional.
[00:43:28.710]Bringing moisture into the diet, there
[00:43:30.290]may be other considerations if you don't have a byproduct
[00:43:32.590]and the advantage of bringing moisture into the diet.
[00:43:36.950]Yeah.
[00:43:37.890]So the other thing that I thought would be kind of fun
[00:43:40.290]is if I--
[00:43:41.550]if I were to work with a producer who just
[00:43:43.950]had the ability to produce a lot of silage,
[00:43:47.490]how would I develop their system?
[00:43:50.610]So the assumption is we have March calving cows, which
[00:43:54.050]is probably the most common.
[00:43:57.930]And I wanted to start with the problem in my system
[00:44:01.290]before he had a chance to point it out.
[00:44:04.450]So if we're going to use a lot of silage,
[00:44:06.250]we need to get that thing harvested September 1.
[00:44:09.310]And then I argued that if you're going to take
[00:44:11.310]silage off, you need to put manure back on.
[00:44:14.110]Well, that needs to happen September 2.
[00:44:16.350]And I argued that if you're going to put a cover crop on
[00:44:19.190]for fall forage, you've got to get that thing planted
[00:44:21.590]because you have limited growing degree days.
[00:44:24.050]So that needs to happen September 3.
[00:44:25.530]And all of that works perfectly every year, right?
[00:44:28.330]So this is -- in this system, this is a major bottleneck,
[00:44:32.870]is at the time that silage needs to be harvested,
[00:44:35.410]if you have manure put back out and planting
[00:44:38.870]your forage crop, that all needs to happen
[00:44:41.070]on the same day, and obviously that's just not feasible.
[00:44:44.510]Nevertheless, if I were to run a system like this,
[00:44:47.170]about the first of November, I'd give that forage crop
[00:44:49.650]time to grow, I'd wean my calves, if I'm weaning
[00:44:54.250]five-weight calves, I'd put them on there for about 30 days,
[00:44:57.590]and I'd expect about two and a quarter pounds a day.
[00:45:00.590]A month later, December 1, they'd weigh 620 pounds,
[00:45:04.290]I'd feed them 80 percent silage, 80 to 85 percent silage,
[00:45:07.990]about 15 percent distillers grains and whatever space the
[00:45:10.830]supplement took, I'd do that for about 90 days and expect them
[00:45:14.370]to gain about 3.1.
[00:45:16.470]Then about March 1, I'd have a nine-weight that I was ready to
[00:45:20.410]put -- step up on the finisher.
[00:45:23.270]Depending on the producer, I'd feed 45 percent corn silage
[00:45:27.010]somewhere depending on the -- how modified or distillers
[00:45:31.450]grains price is in, 20 to 40 percent modified,
[00:45:34.430]expect them to be on feed for about 150 days.
[00:45:37.190]I'm not -- they're not going to blow the doors off, right,
[00:45:39.090]so I'm expecting them to gain about
[00:45:40.590]three and a half, and then sometime in July and August,
[00:45:43.190]I'd market a 1,500-pound steer, okay?
[00:45:48.230]Those of you that have been around a while say,
[00:45:52.130]"I don't know that I want to market cattle in July and August.
[00:45:54.110]That's not the best time on a price standpoint."
[00:45:57.070]Honestly, post-COVID, that relationship has gone away.
[00:46:00.710]It's been pretty much a straight lineup, okay?
[00:46:02.610]So, based on the last four or five years,
[00:46:06.090]marketing in July and August is not a problem.
[00:46:08.250]I do recognize that historically that's not
[00:46:10.350]been the best time to market live cattle.
[00:46:13.750]And then, in my cow-calf system from February 15th to May 1,
[00:46:17.790]so again, I'm coming off of corn stalks here,
[00:46:20.330]and I'm going on to pasture here.
[00:46:23.530]I'd feed her silage during that timeframe,
[00:46:25.930]during that calving window.
[00:46:29.730]The great thing about systems, there's a lot of great things
[00:46:33.310]about having systems associated with your title,
[00:46:36.010]but one of them is you can disagree with me,
[00:46:38.010]but you can't tell me I'm wrong, right?
[00:46:40.110]Because it's my system.
[00:46:41.310]My system is different, everybody's unique.
[00:46:44.250]So I don't have questions, but I do have some time
[00:46:47.350]for discussion, just a few minutes for discussion
[00:46:49.250]if you have anything you'd like to discuss.
[00:46:53.430]Anybody got any questions?
[00:47:02.030]Jeremy.
[00:47:03.530]Jim, did the acres work out in your classifying?
[00:47:09.870]Oh, that's a good question, no.
[00:47:12.410]Can you repeat that for the online audience?
[00:47:14.550]Sure, so Jeremy's asking, did the number of acres
[00:47:17.370]of corn silage that I would need to run that system work out?
[00:47:21.750]And I'm assuming, I wouldn't need all of the corn silage
[00:47:25.090]acres in a secondary forage crop to wean off those calves.
[00:47:31.530]Okay, so I think, if I'm guessing what you're thinking
[00:47:35.330]is finishing those cattle on 45% soilage would take a lot
[00:47:38.690]of acres of silage?
[00:47:39.630]Right?
[00:47:41.030]So, and that is a fair point.
[00:47:42.570]You wouldn't need all of those acres to receive those
[00:47:45.370]calves onto.
[00:47:51.370]Yes, sir.
[00:48:09.370]So, the first questions that I ask are always,
[00:48:12.370]the first question I ask is always what are your goals?
[00:48:13.970]So, the question was, when you're working with a producer
[00:48:17.150]to build a system, what things do you consider?
[00:48:19.410]Number one is always what are your goals?
[00:48:21.190]What's important to you?
[00:48:22.650]Okay, so that may, you know, if producing,
[00:48:26.250]being known as a high quality beef producer or, you know,
[00:48:31.190]quite frankly, if you're being honest, at the coffee shop,
[00:48:34.530]I want to say that I have the most efficient cattle
[00:48:37.530]or the highest gaining cattle, right, that's a little bit
[00:48:39.130]different for everybody, but that's always where we start,
[00:48:41.070]is what are your goals, why are we doing this,
[00:48:43.410]where are we headed, but then I think some,
[00:48:46.710]what are our reasonable forage availability,
[00:48:51.710]what are our options, right, get all of those on the table,
[00:48:55.650]and then that table that I started with,
[00:48:57.490]that's actually probably the most important piece,
[00:48:59.990]is what are those costs per unit of energy,
[00:49:02.990]and then the other thing that's come up a couple of times
[00:49:05.090]today is everybody has, I call them logistical limitations,
[00:49:08.890]they have the ability that they can get things done
[00:49:11.990]or they can't get things done based on how their facility
[00:49:14.530]is set up or based on the different enterprises
[00:49:18.430]that they're running in their system,
[00:49:20.430]and their bottleneck may occur at a different time of year,
[00:49:23.430]and in Nebraska at least that fall bottleneck
[00:49:27.050]when you're harvesting is probably a limitation
[00:49:29.550]that some people would say I can't do that
[00:49:31.150]because I can't get that done in that period of time.
[00:49:33.150]So that's the thought process that I use.
[00:49:36.390]Thank you.

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