Put a push on calves

Full Throttle fits time-critical marketing

Story by Steve Fairchild

Cattle producers face the same universal truth as every working stiff in the Midwest—everything comes down to time and money. That may have always been the case, but an evolving market that demands animals ready for harvest prior to 21 months of age along with the benefits (and potential disadvantages) of grid-based marketing means quick, marble-bearing gain on calves pays more today than it has in the past.

That’s what MFA ruminant nutritionist Dr. Jim White had in mind when he formulated MFA’s newest feed, Full Throttle. The feed earned its name during its trial stage when it put impressive gains on calves in a short amount of time. Dr. White decided to put Full Throttle up against MFA’s successful long-standing feed Cattle Charge. Full Throttle edged it out.

“Yes, we show that Full Throttle put more average daily gain on than Cattle Charge did in these trials, but these are two different feeds for different applications,” said Dr. White. “We expect and get good results from Cattle Charge across a broad spectrum of feeding situations. Full Throttle is more specifically for calves that will respond to the energy and protein component—calves that have been on the creep feeder.”

As a cattle producer, MFA’s Health Track manager Mike John carefully tracks profitability (and recently, the lack of profitability) in cow herds. He’s quick to say that beef producers need to sell more pounds per day. That’s short hand for keeping yardage short, gain efficient and selling calves at more profitable points in the undulating market.

“When Full Throttle was still in trials, we pushed a group of calves with it. They performed better than about any group of calves I’ve ever had. We delivered 15-month-old calves at about 1,350 pounds. They did well in the feedlot. Two percent were prime, with 89 percent being choice or better, while 38 percent made the Certified Angus Beef program’s criteria. Some 36 percent scored 2s and 45 percent 3s. At 1,350 pounds on average, they dressed at 64.4 percent hot yield, which is high cutability. Someone gets paid better for all of this.”

This kind of performance fits John’s push-a-calf-to-the-right-market approach and his responsibilities for the MFA Health Track program. “For our operation, it was a challenge to push calves with starter creep feed that included some grain or a high-energy component and move to a much lower starch diet like Cattle Charge for two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, Cattle Charge is still the product of choice for a forage-based situation, and it’s a good way to get calves started. But when we have calves that have been introduced to a higher energy feed, Full Throttle earns its name.”

Given what he’s seen from Full Throttle, John said that a good program for Midwest producers facing the typical cattle market is to: Start creep feeding with Cattle Charge (tracking consumption). If luxury consumption occurs, switch to Cadence and corn. At weaning, move to Full Throttle.

Gene Wagner, a longtime cattleman from Alma, Mo., participated in MFA’s trial work on Full Throttle. He retains ownership of his calves through harvest, so the quality and grade are important to his profitability. Moreover, he has carefully managed his herd’s genetics for years and knows his calves can perform. Wagner brought his philosophy of scrutiny to the trials. “If a producer is raising cattle and not running them through a set of scales, he is fooling himself,” he said.

With a second set of some 80 calves on Full Throttle, Wagner is impressed with early gain. “So far it’s doing the best of anything we’ve tried,” he said. “What we’re watching is to see how these calves finish out. We’ll be watching the next stage of gain.”

Wagner’s operation is tuned to Mike John’s ideas about getting calves to market expeditiously and at the right time under today’s earlier slaughter trends. He has a fall and spring calving schedule, striving to get the calves to market in fourteen to fifteen months. He’s been doing that and still delivering 1,175 to 1,250 pound calves to Dodge City with cutout bonuses earning some $4 to $9 above base for the plant.

“We’re short on grass anyway,” he said. “We like the better marbling, so when our calves are weaned, they don’t go back on grass—we’re shooting for that 15 months.”

MFA’s Dr. White anticipated one question that will be on producers’ minds: “You’ve got a successful feed in Cattle Charge and you’ve introduced a feed that you say can out perform it. Why should I pick one over the other?” White said it is a matter of individual situation.

“Cattle Charge covers more bases. It’s a utilitarian feed. It’s good for a starter feed in a creep situations. But, it’s also good for putting BCS on cows, developing heifers, bulls, etc. I use an automotive analogy. Cattle Charge is a dependable and efficient sedan. Full Throttle is a Camero. It’s a specific application feed for animals that can respond to its energy and protein components.”

Dr. White’s rule of thumb is that high-risk calves go on Cattle Charge. “If you have stressed calves—animals that have been weaned straight from just grass, or purchased heifers, or those sunken-eyed bargain calves you picked up down south after a hurricane—you start with Cattle Charge. It will straighten them out, allow them to hydrate, etc. After two weeks of that, you can go to Full Throttle. But, if you’ve been feeding calves 4 to 5 pounds of creep per day already, you can move to Full Throttle right away as a full feed, or fed by hand at 2 percent of body weight per day.

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