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| 7P Ranch Newsletter - Summer 2006 | It is hard to write about anything that does not revolve around our lack of rain.We are in the midst of drought management. Dr. David Hutcheson has graciously furnished us a monograph on this subject. (see Nutrition section on our web site).
We were fortunate in late May to put up our silage - Maton Rye (cereal rye) and Tam 90 Rye grass. This is our second consecutive year with a serious drought. Last winter was saved by the silage we had left over. We used our silage with Purina Accuration Feed Limiter and got by with our grown cattle. Our young cattle were given hay and accuration,since the silage has so much moisture (2/3) and they are unable to eat enough to get adequate dry matter.
For our older bulls over 15 months of age, we are feeding silage and accuration. They will be ready for sale day the last Saturday in October.
We will wean early. They will all be four months or older by the last week of July when we wean as Hutch says it is cheaper to feed calves than cows and calves. We will follow his advise and use the cheapest forage we can find and we do not think it will be $70/roll coastal bermuda hay. It will probably be cotton seed burrs. We have put up no hay and are using our hay meadows for forage (cheaper to have cows eat it than baling and feeding it).
The real problem we have is that our Simmental genetics are the result of our 30 years or A.I. breeding and we cannot simply sell them and be able to replace this when it rains. We will be very hard on our older cows and we will cull aggressively on fertility and performance of progeny. If moisture returns, we will go heavy again with our winter pasture program.
We will also sell our F1 commercial females early in our fall sale. We will also sell a select group of open F1 Brah/Herf (Dudley Bros. bulls) that we normally breed in the fall for our spring commercial sale. Our neighbor, North Star, will offer 150 F1 Brah/Herf bred heifers also so this will be a big sale. This will be a great opportunity for cattlemen with forage.
We will sell approximately 100 bulls (Simmental and Sim Angus) and 100 Purebred Simmental and Sim Angus females and the commercial F1 Brah/Herf females, about 200 +.
It is said that we learn from adversity so next letter will give you a run down about our new found brilliance.
Joe |
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