It is nearly that wonderful time of the year for green grass, bringing with it low, or better yet, non-existent feed bills. On cool-season grasses (fescue, brome, etc.), cows usually have adequate protein. They will likely be energy short if they are milking heavily. Calves will usually not be able to meet their protein needs from pasture until weaning. Full genetic potential for gain in beef calves requires energy that’s invariably greater than what fescue/brome pastures offer. To optimize productivity, it is often necessary to practice strategic supplementation.

Both field experience and university research show that it is often advantageous to supplement pasture with grain or other feedstuffs to match pasture quality with animal requirements for higher gains on pasture. Generally the principal objective here is that grazing animals are ready for market in the fall. Supplemental feeding of StockGuard, Cattle Charge or TrendSetter SLR on pasture can increase average daily gain by as much as 0.75 to 1.5 lbs. per day. This can cut a couple of months off the time they need to get to market.

In many cases, producers may offer a free-choice feed such as TrendSetter SLR or hand feed TrendSetter Developer Ration. For the most part, when cattle are on forage-based diets, they make more efficient use of feed if concentrate feeding is limited.

Level of supplement intake

When concentrate is offered free choice to yearlings on pasture, concentrate intake will increase with decreasing forage availability and quality. On well-managed, cool-season grass pastures, yearlings self-fed concentrate with no limitation on pasture will consume near 2 percent of their body weight as grain-based concentrate dry matter.

When grazing stockers or yearlings, to increase the forage utilization and feed value of most pastures, concentrate intake should be held nearly 1 percent of body weight.

If the forage is very lush and abundant, hand feeding 0.5 percent body  weight of high energy feed would be suitable. With grazing animals, the quality of the forage intake will drop from April to late summer. In the table below are results that Illinois researchers reported for collected esophageal masticate samples on steers grazing fescue. Such samples are collected by fitting a spigot into the steer, then catching the feed in a sack during the collection period.

When pasture is limited and of low quality, such as late in the season or on overstocked areas, full feeding TrendSetter SLR or TrendSetter SLR with corn is appropriate.

The feeding of supplements on pasture extends the forage resource, letting you run more animals than you could without supplementation.

Limiting supplement intake

Often it is necessary to control supplement intake. The gold standard of limiting intake is hand feeding. If hand feeding is not practical, there are other means of restricting intake.

Limiting intake with salt: This has been done for years. When one evaluates limiters only on the effectiveness and cost, salt wins. It’s cheap, and does a consistent job of knocking back intake. There are drawbacks to using salt: salt burns grass; it is tough on feeders; cattle look rough and water availability is a big issue.

The amount of salt needed depends upon the level of intake desired, the size of cattle, forage quality, forage availability and water quality. As cattle gain experience with salt-limited rations, they tend to increase their consumption. Cattle will eat about a pound of salt a day, per 1,000 lbs. of body weight. Coarsely ground salt often seems more effective in limiting feed intake than finely ground salt.

Self feeders are used for a variety of reasons, but reduced labor need is a principal reason. Less time and bunk space are needed with a self feeder. A self-limiting ration such as TrendSetter SLR also results in the benefit of increasing the number of meals that an animal eats a day. Cattle fed TrendSetter SLR will eat smaller and more frequent meals at a self feeder. This encourages rumen productivity. As with any feeding strategy, it is a good practice to make any ration change slowly, allowing the animals to adapt to the feed change. After animals are accustomed to supplemental grain, it is important to keep feed in the feeder. Even with plenty of pasture, animals tend to wait stubbornly at the feeder only to overeat when the feed truck arrives. This obstinate behavior can be avoided by not running out of feed. Products like Cattle Charge and TrendSettter SLR minimize this risk tremendously, but nothing can completely eliminate it.

Cattle offered TrendSetter SLR will be able to spread out supplement intake through the day and reduce the “slug feeding” effect that consumption of large amounts of supplement may have on the rumen. When cattle consume substantial amounts of starch, rumen pH drops drastically. This discourages growth of fiber-digesting bacteria. Thus, slug feeding will reduce the amount of forage that cattle can digest in a day. Inappropriate slug feeding has given lower ADG than no concentrate supplementation.