150000 head feed lot....is it a factory farm ?

[Chris123]

The whole job would take a bit of financing.

 

[JP1]

You’ve never fattened cattle like a feedlot does.

And they aren’t given ‘roids. They’re given a few things, that’s not one of them.

Probably any animal who’s rumen is completely switched over to become so acidic with the minimal forage required for 200 days is going to lose some gut.You put that 809 onto a fat schedule at a feedlot and he’ll turn into those bottom photos too just like if you see him after he’s got his working clothes on he’s going to look completely different.

I've seen a recent feedlot documentary with the central feed mixing plant with pallets of roids and the host freely admitting it was legal and they were included

 

[Blaithin]

I've seen a recent feedlot documentary with the central feed mixing plant with pallets of roids and the host freely admitting it was legal and they were included

I believe I showed, fairly extensively, everything a feedlot gives to animals years ago. It hasn’t changed. Whether you’re watching American programs that call them steroids or Canadian ones that call them implants and beta agonists, it’s the same now as it was 7 years ago.

 

[M-J-G]

You’ve never fattened cattle like a feedlot does.

And they aren’t given ‘roids. They’re given a few things, that’s not one of them.

Probably any animal who’s rumen is completely switched over to become so acidic with the minimal forage required for 200 days is going to lose some gut.You put that 809 onto a fat schedule at a feedlot and he’ll turn into those bottom photos too just like if you see him after he’s got his working clothes on he’s going to look completely different.

I've never given cattle hormones or implants etc. if that's what you mean.

Diet will not take the gut off those bulls pictured so don't kid yourself.
Why do you think gutty breeding bulls here in the UK have their water intake restricted pre sale.
If diet would achieve this the bull breeders herd would have them on that diet.

 

[Blaithin]

I've never given cattle hormones or implants etc. if that's what you mean.

Diet will not take the gut off those bulls pictured so don't kid yourself.
Why do you think gutty breeding bulls here in the UK have their water intake restricted pre sale.
If diet would achieve this the bull breeders herd would have them on that diet.

No, I was referring to how they’re pushed on grain. The UKs predilection to ad lib grain is in no way the same as the diets animals in a feedlot are fed.

For the most part the supplements only change their feed conversion and direct it towards muscle growth instead of fat. It’s the diet that is the driver. You can give the same supplements - and many variations are given - to animals on grass and it doesn’t miraculously produce animals in those photos. An implant, for the cost of $5, can produce you $50 more of weight on the same amount of feed. It doesn’t change the animals entire body shape.

Show cattle and bulls prior to photo shoots are fed filler meals. Lots of bulky things like beet pellets. They want to show the animals capacity and ability for rib spring. Guaranteed that 809 bull would be nearly unrecognizable after a season on pasture. If you were to drive around here in the fall and look at bulls pulled out you would struggle to find anything fitting your description. A working animal is completely different to one sitting in a pen on feed for the winter and fluffed up for photo shoots in deep bedding.

For better or worse I have no idea why that’s the trend for selling animals. Showing a brushed top line and rib spring is showing little to display the animals longevity, but that’s the trend.

Now if you’re saying put the bulls on a diet so they look like the feedlot cattle... that wouldn’t work. It’s a terminal diet, you wouldn’t get a functioning animal on it for long and I’m sure it doesn’t have a great affect on fertility. You want to see an animal that looks similar then find a range for him. Stick him out in some hill country and make him chase his 30 cows across hundreds of acres. That’ll get rid of his gut and show you the animal underneath.

 

[M-J-G]

No, I was referring to how they’re pushed on grain. The UKs predilection to ad lib grain is in no way the same as the diets animals in a feedlot are fed.

For the most part the supplements only change their feed conversion and direct it towards muscle growth instead of fat. It’s the diet that is the driver. You can give the same supplements - and many variations are given - to animals on grass and it doesn’t miraculously produce animals in those photos. An implant, for the cost of $5, can produce you $50 more of weight on the same amount of feed. It doesn’t change the animals entire body shape.

Show cattle and bulls prior to photo shoots are fed filler meals. Lots of bulky things like beet pellets. They want to show the animals capacity and ability for rib spring. Guaranteed that 809 bull would be nearly unrecognizable after a season on pasture. If you were to drive around here in the fall and look at bulls pulled out you would struggle to find anything fitting your description. A working animal is completely different to one sitting in a pen on feed for the winter and fluffed up for photo shoots in deep bedding.

For better or worse I have no idea why that’s the trend for selling animals. Showing a brushed top line and rib spring is showing little to display the animals longevity, but that’s the trend.

Now if you’re saying put the bulls on a diet so they look like the feedlot cattle... that wouldn’t work. It’s a terminal diet, you wouldn’t get a functioning animal on it for long and I’m sure it doesn’t have a great affect on fertility. You want to see an animal that looks similar then find a range for him. Stick him out in some hill country and make him chase his 30 cows across hundreds of acres. That’ll get rid of his gut and show you the animal underneath.

So the big unhealthy looking bellys are fake and just a trick to give the illusion of having capacity?

I was lead to believe that this was natural capacity which is essential to convert poor forage into beef, but you say that these cattle aren't like that when put to work.

Interesting!

 

[Blaithin]

So the big unhealthy looking bellys are fake and just a trick to give the illusion of having capacity?

I was lead to believe that this was natural capacity which is essential to convert poor forage into beef, but you say that these cattle aren't like that when put to work.

Interesting!

I said they’re the result of being on bulky feed, getting a blow out and clip, and not working. The goal is to highlight their capacity. An animal can have great capacity but if you take the picture when they’re empty you aren’t going to see it as easily now are you.

Do you have no experience with cattle changing form throughout the year? My dry cows are not in the same condition as my peak lactation cows, why are you assuming a bull in the off season would be the same in the working season?

Unless you’re being purposely obtuse.

 

[Blaithin]

@M-J-G feel free to go take a gander here https://www.facebook.com/groups/539905846086871/?ref=share

You can easily tell those who’ve prepared their bulls for photo shoots vs those just taking photos. There’s even a few that you can find their young selves bull sale photos in with their recent photos.

For the most part there are no pot belly’s barring some yearling and 2 yr olds who you can tell have been set up for photos, in deep bedding that cover half their legs.

There’s even photos of some bulls in their working summer clothes, just in case you really don’t know what I’ve been talking about.

Also of note is that none of the female breeding stock have those gutty bellies.

 

[M-J-G]

I said they’re the result of being on bulky feed, getting a blow out and clip, and not working. The goal is to highlight their capacity. An animal can have great capacity but if you take the picture when they’re empty you aren’t going to see it as easily now are you.

Do you have no experience with cattle changing form throughout the year? My dry cows are not in the same condition as my peak lactation cows, why are you assuming a bull in the off season would be the same in the working season?

Unless you’re being purposely obtuse.

I've not seen cattle go from having a big distended gut to having clean lines throughout the year.

 

[Blaithin]

I've not seen cattle go from having a big distended gut to having clean lines throughout the year.

Then you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Hell, I’ve seen them go from big distended guts just by worming them or giving them a feed higher in protein.

 

[M-J-G]

Then you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Hell, I’ve seen them go from big distended guts just by worming them or giving them a feed higher in protein.

Thankfully I've managed not let cattle get into that state from either parasites or poor diet.

Clean types of cattle only get a belly like that if they aren't being looked after properly.
I have seen plenty of naturall gutty cattle (thankfully not mine) and they always stay gutty all year round, but perhaps you have a diet that varies more dramatically than we do here.

 

[digger64]

I've never given cattle hormones or implants etc. if that's what you mean.

Diet will not take the gut off those bulls pictured so don't kid yourself.
Why do you think gutty breeding bulls here in the UK have their water intake restricted pre sale.
If diet would achieve this the bull breeders herd would have them on that diet.

I

I've never given cattle hormones or implants etc. if that's what you mean.

Diet will not take the gut off those bulls pictured so don't kid yourself.
Why do you think gutty breeding bulls here in the UK have their water intake restricted pre sale.
If diet would achieve this the bull breeders herd would have them on that diet.

I think you are wrong , the gut can be grown out by increasing the DM and nutrient density of the ration , (beet ,grass and silage fed cattle would illustate this on the basis of ko % )what you are doing is associating the potential KO % and it's relation ship with the price per kg lw in the auction ring which is important to the buyer or agent but not so important to the processor who pays on the carcass weight hung up .
The bull 809 would still grade r or u 4l when hung up regardless of gut but the KO would be say 5 or 6 % below a cereal fed lim .
Surely most UK bulls reared for the big stock bull sales would be on a high DM starch / nutrient dense ration as a matter of routine
to achieve the growth rate and visual criteria to be competitive .
But would a cereal fed lim be economically and physically competitive in the enviroment that bull 809 lives in ?

 

[Dead Rabbits]

My uncle used to work for Simplot on there breeding improvement program. It was a good 10 years ago at that time they ran 5000 Angus suck cows on hill ground classified as high mountain desert in Idaho. The best were bulled to Angus as replacements and all the rest went to Charolais. They we're running about 1 cow per 10ha with virtually zero intervention until the calves were rounded up in the autumn and brought into the feedlot. All work was done in horseback.

I always wanted to go out there with him but never made it.

How many on here would know who simplot was.? Agriculture legend

 

[Roger Perry]

How many on here would know who simplot was.? Agriculture legend

J.R. Simplot was /is still a legend.
The potato king.

 

[M-J-G]

I
I think you are wrong , the gut can be grown out by increasing the DM and nutrient density of the ration , (beet ,grass and silage fed cattle would illustate this on the basis of ko % )what you are doing is associating the potential KO % and it's relation ship with the price per kg lw in the auction ring which is important to the buyer or agent but not so important to the processor who pays on the carcass weight hung up .
The bull 809 would still grade r or u 4l when hung up regardless of gut but the KO would be say 5 or 6 % below a cereal fed lim .
Surely most UK bulls reared for the big stock bull sales would be on a high DM starch / nutrient dense ration as a matter of routine
to achieve the growth rate and visual criteria to be competitive .
But would a cereal fed lim be economically and physically competitive in the enviroment that bull 809 lives in ?

I'm not thinking anything about KO% at all and I'm not comparing hard pushed bulls round forage reared.
I'm simply not in agreement that 809 or the other weird looking record priced bull are going to be made into a tight middled animal with clean lines just by putting him onto a maize diet.

 

[Blaithin]

Going from a diet that’s probably 90% forage to one that’s maybe 10% and you don’t think they’d lose some gut?

I’ll try and find some old feedlot rations. I think I have some at home somewhere.

 

[M-J-G]

Going from a diet that’s probably 90% forage to one that’s maybe 10% and you don’t think they’d lose some gut?

I’ll try and find some old feedlot rations. I think I have some at home somewhere.

I think they'll loose some.
I've seen calves on old rough hay and a lack of protein with big distended bellies and when they go to grass they tidy up a bit.

But a naturally gutty animal doesn't become a clean type just because of diet, just like a greyhound type doesn't become a slack gutty type just because it gets old rubbish forage.

 

[NZDan]

My question was, how come a lot of cattle in feed lots like the cattle that the cowboy was checking on the horse aren't gutty and short legged.

Because they're steers, which are always taller and less gutty.

 

[NZDan]

Blonde d'A good lord no! Too much like a greyhound for me.
I'm not speaking about my preference I'm just curious about the transformation.

When I suggest gutty breeding stock I mean this type

https://www.facebook.com/1149342112/posts/10214955682902763

View attachment 931244
I've fattened a few cattle in my time but I've never managed to change that to
This
View attachment 931242
Or this
View attachment 931243
I'm guessing @Bill the Bass won't be far away with his suggestion.

809 is a bull and young, probably raised on a high fibre diet, the rest are steers.

 

[NZDan]

Plenty of beef is produced in the system you describe with sucker cows at very low stocking rates over vast areas.

The animals in the feedlot are either the calves produced on the extensively grazed ranges or they are dairy bred.

I read an article a while back which compared the full production cycle of EU, UK and US beef, of the 3 the US had the least amount of feedlot time per kg of beef, mainly because cows were never feedlotted where as the EU and the UK had relatively larger % of cattle wintered indoors although the differences between the 3 weren't great.
There was a surprising % of US beef not finished on feed lots as well.