The Garfield County Extension Office is hosting John Paterson, MSU Extension Beef Specialist and Richard Waterman, Research Scientist in Nutrition at Fort Keogh Research Station on February 11 at 2 pm at the Hilltop Café.

John Paterson, MSU Extension Beef Specialist will present his program entitled:

John will focus his presentation on the benefits of balancing a ration. When to balance a ration, what nutrients will most commonly be lacking when feeding cows or calves and some alternatives for economically supplying those nutrients will be discussed. John will bring his wealth of experience in finding a lower cost way to adequately get your cows through the winter.

Richard Waterman, Research Scientist in Nutrition at Fort Keogh Research Station in Miles City will present the program entitled:

Richard’s primary research areas are protein supplementation for cattle and the role of livestock in noxious weed control.

This will be a very informative meeting with plenty of opportunity to discuss feeding rations and options with Extension professionals.

Garfield County Extension, in conjunction with the Musselshell/GoldenValley, Custer, McCone, Dawson Extension Offices and the MSU Extension Beef Specialist, John Paterson, will be offering a workshop to look at the issues of Food Safety, Livestock Disease and Animal Identification. This workshop will be held in the ITV classroom at the Garfield County District High School on Thursday, February 12 at 6:30 pm.

Dr. John Scanga, Extension Meat Science Professor from Colorado State University, will give an update on BSE and consumer reactions.

Dr. John Paterson, MSU Extension Beef Specialist, will talk on Animal Identification and Beef Quality Assurance. At the completion of the program, participants can be BQA certified.

If you have any questions or wish to register for the class, please call the Garfield County Extension Office at 557-2770.

Eric Miller, Garfield County Agent, will present an Intro to Quicken Class on February 17 at 3 pm at the Garfield County Courtroom. The emphasis on this class will be on home and ranch record keeping. Participation is limited to the number of computers available. Please call the Extension Office to reserve a place. More classes will be offered to meet demand.

Garfield County Agent Eric Miller and MSU Extension Sheep Specialist, Rodney Kott will host a sheep management day at the Bonnie Cooley Ranch. Topics covered will include: Wool handling for increased returns, how to sort your sheep prior to shearing, lambing management, lambing and post lambing nutritional requirements.

Eric Miller, County Agent will present a Basic Computer Class in the Courtroom on February 24 at 3 p.m. Class space limited to computer availability.

Topics covered will include: Navigating in Windows, Word, file management, saving files writing to external drives, maintaining your computer with teenagers in the household, and internet

The weather of 2004 has proven to be the exception rather than the rule as compared to the past few years. Plenty of snow and cold temperatures have increased the amount of feed many people are providing to their cows. While the cost of feed per day increases, full feed allows for some alternatives to reduce feed expenses.

The nutritional demands of cattle have increased due to the cold and snowy conditions and the cows have to rely on the rancher for all their feed requirements. Taking care of the cattle now will provide positive returns in the spring’s calf crop and in rebreeding performance this summer.

Cattle should be fed to maintain a body condition (BCS) score of 5. (Cow has generally good appearance. Upon palpation, fat cover over ribs feels spongy and areas on either side of tail-head now have palpable fat cover). Research has shown that mature beef cows calving with a BCS of 5 will have maximum reproductive performance the following breeding season. Additionally, optimum condition scores on the cow at calving will maintain or slightly increase calf birth weights, but reduce calving difficulties.

When preparing feed rations for cattle a good rule of thumb to remember is cows will consume approximately 2.0% of their weight in dry matter per day. For a 1200-pound cow that works out to 24 pounds of dry matter per day. At 32 degrees the requirement increases to 27 pounds of dry matter and at –5˚ F. a cow will need 30.5 pounds of dry matter. Meeting dry matter intake requirements is important during the cold weather because it is the process of rumination that provides body heat to the cow. A good rule to follow is to increase feed by 10 to 15 % when temperatures drop below 0˚ F.

Dry matter is not the amount of feed provided to the cows; it is the weight of dry feed without the water included. To calculate the dry matter of a feed, the percentage of water must be deducted. For example, a 1000-pound bale measured at 90% dry matter includes 10% water; therefore the bale contains 900 pounds of dry matter. If a cow were to eat 30 pounds of dry matter from a bale that is 90% dry matter she would eat 33 pounds of hay. The 33 pounds of hay refers to the as-fed weight, which includes the weight of the water. In addition to the dry matter requirements, cattle have an energy requirement that also increases as temperatures decrease. Total digestible nutrients (TDN) are a common value used to determine the amount of energy in a feed. A 1200-pound cow in the 7th month of pregnancy has a TDN requirement of 12.4 pounds per day at 32˚. When the temperature drops to –5˚, the TDN requirement increases to 13.2 pounds.

How do you know if a cow is receiving an adequate amount of TDN? The best method is to have the hay tested. The test results express the amount of TDN as a percentage. If a forage analysis states a feed TDN value is 62% and 30 pounds are fed, then the cow is receiving 18.6 pounds of TDN (30 X .62 = 18.6).

The only requirement that does not change with a decrease in the temperature is crude protein (CP). Protein requirements remain at 1.75 pounds per day for a 1200-pound cow in the 7th month of pregnancy. The same technique as used to determine TDN can be used to determine if a cow is receiving adequate CP. Hay with a measured CP of 12 % fed at 30 pounds means that cow is consuming 3.6 pounds of CP (30 x .12 = 3.6).

As important as it is to not underfeed cows prior to calving, overfeeding also has its drawbacks. Elevated protein levels have been shown to have negative effects on rebreeding performance due to increased blood ammonia levels. The daily cost of feed needs to be considered when balancing a ration to meet the cows nutritional requirements. In the example above, while the dry matter requirements are being met the cows are receiving excess CP and TDN. Hay that tests at 62% TDN and 12 % CP is considered very good and is not needed as a full ration for cows. To reduce the cost of the feed, straw or low quality hay can be substituted for a portion of the ration. Substituting low quality hay or straw should decrease the feed bill while still meeting the DM, TDN and CP requirements of the cattle.

For more information or assistance figuring winter feed rations call the Extension Office at 557-2770. MSU Beef Specialist John Paterson will be in Jordan addressing feeding issues on February 11th. John’s program, “Will the hay in my stack meet my cows’ requirements?” will cover these and other feeding topics in more depth.