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Cattle Biology

Cattle are ruminants, members of a class of grazing animals with four-chambered stomachs adapted to digesting coarse forages that other animals cannot utilize. Consequently, cattle—as well as sheep and goats—can make use of land too rough, rocky, dry, or wet to grow crops for humans.

Cattle pick their meals by smell and taste, and then they graze until the first chamber of the stomach, the rumen, is full. Because they have no front upper teeth, just a hard pad, they tear the grass instead of biting it. (This is also why cows don’t normally bite people.) Watch a cow grazing, and you’ll see it grip a bite of grass between the pad and the lower front incisors and then swing its head a little to rip it off.

The long muscular tongue, as rough as sandpaper, is useful in quickly conveying grass back to the throat. The tongue is also used for grabbing grass, for licking up those last bits of grain, and for a little personal grooming (although cows aren’t flexible enough to reach around too far). Copious amounts of saliva—up to fifteen gallons a day for a mature cow—moisten the grass so it slides easily down the throat.

Once the rumen is full of pasture grass or hay, the cow will lie down in a comfortable spot and, mouthful by mouthful, burp it all back up again. Because it initially swallowed without chewing, the cow now brings those huge rear molars into play and takes the time to grind up the grass into a slimy pulp before swallowing it again, this time into the second stomach chamber, the reticulum. Chewing cud, as this process is called, takes eight to ten hours each day and involves up to forty thousand jaw movements.

From the reticulum, the cud moves into the omasum and next to the abomasum, the true stomach, then down the intestines. What’s not absorbed comes out the back end. Because a cow’s diet is high in fiber and fairly low in nutrients, an awful lot comes out the back end, ten or twelve times a day, for a grand total of up to 50 pounds of manure every twenty-four hours.

Along with all undigested organic matter and dead gut bacteria, cow manure often carries the eggs of internal parasites, or “worms,” as most people call them. Cows won’t graze near their own manure, an evolutionary response to the parasite problem. But cattle show no discretion as to where they poop, so pastures need to be large enough or rotated often enough that the cattle don’t foul the grazing areas to the point that nothing is edible.

In addition to the manure deposits, cattle urinate eight to eleven times a day. Both manure and urine are superb fertilizer for pastures. Although the cattle won’t graze those areas right away, they will after the deposits decompose.

Because cattle need to spend so much time resting and ruminating, they’ll graze for only about eight hours a day. (When it’s hot, they do much of their grazing at night.) The higher the quality of the pasture or hay, the easier it is for cattle to get enough to eat in those eight hours and to gain weight and bear healthy calves. Young, lush pasture is their favorite food, high in muscle-building and milk-making protein. If it’s too young and too lush, however, pasture can cause problems. Cattle digestive systems are set up for lots of fiber, which young pasture and legumes, such as clover and alfalfa, lack. Too much of this type of feed can pack the rumen so tightly that digestive gases can’t escape, and the cow begins to bloat. If the bloat isn’t treated quickly, it will put such pressure on the cow’s lungs that she won’t be able to breathe, and she’ll die. For this reason, you should never put cattle on wet or frosted legume pastures and should always provide some dry hay in the spring when pastures are just greening up. Bloat is a fairly common killer of cattle, although it’s more common among dairy cattle than beef, due to the much richer diets fed to dairy cattle—which brings up an important point: when talking to others about and asking for advice on feeding, be sure to mention that you have beef cattle because their dietary needs are very different from those of dairy cattle.

Older pasture and hay composed of mixed grass and legumes are lower in protein but higher in carbohydrates. This keeps cattle’s digestive systems in better order, helps fatten the cattle, and keeps them warm in the winter. It is also healthier for pregnant and nursing cows. Mother cows can get too fat on rich pasture, which is hard on their feet and legs and may contribute to difficult calving.

For the small-scale beef producer, feeding doesn’t have to be complicated. There are three basic components: pasture, hay, and grain. One important rule to remember is that whenever you change your cattle’s diet—whether moving the cow herd from hay to pasture each spring or moving steers on to a finishing ration—do it slowly. The naturally occurring bacteria in their digestive systems, which transform food into nutrients, need time to gear up for a new ration.

Pasture

Your pasture is the centerpiece of your beef operation. It normally makes up the bulk of a herd’s diet, and cattle that feed on good pasture are healthy and happy. Providing good pasture also means not having to provide as much hay, and the less time and effort you invest in hay, the more likely it is that you will end up in the black at the end of the year. Call your extension agent to find out how many acres of pasture it takes to support a steer or cow in your area, which can be anywhere from one and a half in the humid Southeast to forty in a semidesert area in the West. You can then estimate how many head of cattle you can theoretically sustain on your land. Keep in mind, though, that this is just an estimate. The actual number will vary considerably, depending on the fertility of your soil, whether it’s a dry or wet year, and whether you have uplands, lowlands, or something in between. Keep your capacity on the conservative side, at least until you have a few years of experience under your belt. It’s cheaper and less hassle to be long on feed and short on cattle than the other way around.

Dividing your pasture into paddocks lets your cows graze one area at a time while the other areas rest and regrow.

Pasture Quality

Once you have a rough idea of how many cattle your land may be able to support, take a walk in your pasture. The most critical ingredient in the recipe for developing and maintaining a high-quality pasture is, as the old saying goes, “the footsteps of the owner.” What’s growing there? Grasses and legumes that cattle thrive on, or weeds? A weed, in this context, is not necessarily a bad plant; it’s just something that cattle won’t eat. Quack grass, for example, may be a weed in the yard but is good eating for cattle. After you’ve evaluated your pasture, you may want to adjust your carrying capacity accordingly.

On a side note, when patrolling your pasture, look for old bits of wire, stray nails, and other metal garbage and get rid of it before the cattle arrive. They will eat this stuff, which could perforate their stomachs and make them ill. This is called “hardware disease,” and it’s far better to prevent it than treat it.

So, how do you go about improving pasture quality? To help you figure out what to plant, get your soil tested. Some extension services offer soil testing, or you can check with your seed dealer for contact information of soil-testing labs in your area. The test results will indicate what soil amendments you need, and you can proceed accordingly. Be sure to specify that you’re testing for pasture because soil amendments and fertilizer recommendations are calculated differently for row crops.

You ideally want your pasture to consist mainly of palatable grasses with a healthy component of legumes. Achieving this happy state may take a few years of managed grazing, mowing, and fertilization. You may want to add plant species by overseeding—that is, scattering seed in an established pasture. Much of the fertilization and all of the grazing will come from your cattle. Your job is to manage the cattle so that they do a good job of fertilizing and grazing.

The grasses and clovers that cattle like to eat grow differently from trees, shrubs, and some weeds. If you understand this difference, you’ll understand why mowing and grazing are the keys to good pastures. Grasses and clovers have a “growing point” at or near the ground. When a cow bites off a blade of grass or a clover stem, the plant quickly regrows from this growing point. Trees, shrubs, and weeds, however, grow from the tips of their branches and leaves. That’s why, when you prune a shrub, it stays pruned for months. By contrast, you have to mow the lawn every week—the cutting actually stimulates it to grow faster by removing the older leaves that are getting in the way of the growing point at the base of the plant. Grazing has the same effect, so grazing, when correctly managed, results in lush pastures.

Unmanaged grazing, however, can devastate a pasture. This is because when a mower or a cow shears off the leafy part of the plant, it temporarily depletes the food supply to the roots, and some of those roots die. Dead roots put a lot of organic matter into the soil, which is great for holding water and keeping the soil moist, but a great many live, healthy roots are necessary for a thick, lush pasture. You want a balance between dead roots and live roots. If you cut your grass every day or let your cows graze the same plants every day, you kill too much of the root, and the grass will become stunted or even die. If the process goes on too long, the soil loses much of its plant cover and becomes vulnerable to wind and water erosion.

Weeds are especially abundant when the cattle feed in the same pasture for an entire growing season. Because the cows keep the grass and clover so short, the weeds have no real competition for sun or water and thus can grow with little restraint. In the spring, when all of the plants in an extensive pasture get off to an even start and are growing like gangbusters, this type of pasture looks great. By late summer, when the rain has slacked off, the spring growth spurt is over, and the cattle have kept their favorite plants short, a lot of these pastures are full of big weeds, tiny grass plants, and skinny cattle.

By contrast, grass that isn’t grazed while it’s still fairly young and tender gets stiff from hard-to-digest cellulose as it matures. The tall grass blades shade the growing point near the soil, and growth slows or stops. Some older plants in a pasture are OK to supply some fiber. However, the older the plant is, the slower it grows, and the less palatable it is to cows. Keep in mind, too, that a certain amount of old growth left over the winter can protect roots and growing points from freeze-thaw cycles that heave the soil and break roots. Too much, though, and the ground will be shaded and slow to warm in the spring, and new growth will have a tough time struggling through the old stuff to reach sunlight.

In summary, a thick pasture full of grasses and legumes that cattle like and lacking the weeds they dislike—with grass that isn’t too old or too short—is ideal for the health and growth of cattle. This type of pasture provides the added advantages of growing longer into dry spells, greening up sooner in the spring, and staying green longer in the fall, which means money in your pocket that you won’t have to spend on extra hay.

Rotational versus Extensive Grazing

It would seem that the best way to graze cattle is to let them graze an area thoroughly for a short period and then put them somewhere else while that area rests and regrows. This is called rotational or management-intensive grazing. Figured out in the 1960s and 1970s by Allan Savory, founder of Holistic Management International, and a host of other researchers, farmers, and ranchers around the world—and since portable fencing became readily available in the 1980s—rotational grazing has been quietly revolutionizing pasture and range management.

Nonetheless, extensive grazing is still by far the most common pasture system in the United States. If you have a lot of land and just a few head of cattle, it may be the most economical choice. The cattle can be turned out for the grazing season and left largely on their own; you only need to make sure that they have water, salt, and a mineral mix on hand at all times. If the pasture is big enough, no one will starve, although if it gets dry in the late summer and grass growth stalls, the cattle will need hay.

The biggest long-term problem with extensive grazing is that it can wreak havoc with the soil, water, and vegetation. Cattle that return to the same areas day after day to graze or rest will kill the plants and compact the soil. If there’s a stream or pond in the pasture, they’ll trample the banks into mud. With no lush vegetation to shade the water and no roots to hold the soil, the water temperature will rise and the banks erode, clouding the water and silting up the bottom. This is devastating for many aquatic species, especially prized ones such as rainbow trout. When cattle rest in the shade of the same trees day after day, the trampling can destroy the delicate feeder root systems and kill the trees. When palatable grass and clover are constantly grazed into the ground, noxious weeds can flourish. Especially in dry climates, where even without cattle it’s difficult for vegetation to prosper, extensive grazing can be devastating.

Setting up rotational grazing for beef cattle is fairly simple. Using whatever type of fence you prefer, split your pasture into several paddocks. Step-in posts and plastic electric wire are the cheapest, quickest, and most common choices for paddock fences. If, however, you don’t care for the constant maintenance required by electric fencing, you can put up permanent paddock divisions.

Paddocks should be sized to provide enough pasture to feed the herd for at least three days but usually no longer than a week. A shorter period tends to make beef cows too fat, and a longer stretch allows them to regraze plants that are just beginning to regrow. If you’re grazing steers with the goal of putting on as much weight as quickly as possible, you can shorten the rotation time to twenty-four, or even twelve, hours, although it’s not necessary if the pasture is in good condition.

Paddocks need to be rested anywhere from a couple of weeks during the spring flush of growth in high rainfall areas to several months in hot, dry regions. Getting it all right takes some experimentation, talking to other rotational grazers in your area, and practice. Fortunately, rotational grazing is a forgiving process, and the cattle will probably do fine while you tweak your system.

Portable fencing makes it possible to change paddock sizes and configurations at the drop of a hat. In those years when I have more cows, I subdivide the land into more paddocks and graze them for shorter periods. When I have fewer cows, I cut back on paddock numbers and don’t graze as tightly. Most years, I also graze all or part of our hayfields, either early in the spring or late in the fall or during a dry stretch when the pastures have given out. Anytime your cattle can harvest forage for themselves will save you time and money.

Overall, rotationally grazing pastures produces significantly more grass—as well as more palatable grass—than extensive grazing does. In practical terms, that means faster-growing animals and fewer out-of-pocket costs for feed. Organic matter in the soil increases, which helps hold moisture in. Consequently, grass growth continues longer into a dry spell. The pasture gets thicker and lusher. Trees are hardier. The tall grass along streams shades the water, and the roots hold the soil of the stream banks tightly, keeping the water clear and the stream narrow and deep.

FEED ADDITIVES AND GROWTH SUPPLEMENTS More than 90 percent of cattle being fattened for slaughter are implanted with hormones and given antibiotics in their feed to make them grow more quickly and to convert feed to muscle more efficiently. When done correctly, the economics of these practices are persuasive. Properly used hormone implants will add 40–50 pounds of weight to a finished steer for a couple bucks’ investment, while antibiotics and ionophores (a particular class of antibiotics with a different mode of chemical action in the body) increase the efficiency of digestion by 10–20 percent, which results in quicker weight gain. Antibiotics in the feed at low levels also help prevent illness and disease in what is (in a feedlot) a very crowded and dirty environment for cattle, which are being fed an unnatural diet. Hormone implants are placed in the middle third of the ear and are either a synthetic estrogen that will increase muscle gain, a synthetic androgen that decreases protein breakdown and thus increases muscle mass, or a combination of the two. However, implants inserted incorrectly or the wrong implant type for the animal can diminish the benefit. An estimated 25 percent of implants have abscesses around the implant site, reducing their effectiveness, and implants in larger breeds can result in overly large animals. Implants can also increase toughness and delay marbling—the fat deposited inside the muscle—lengthening the time the animal must be on feed to reach a higher quality grade. Concern over the effects of these practices on the environment and humans has grown markedly. An article by Michael Pollan in the March 31, 2002, edition of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, titled “This Steer’s Life,” probably did more than any other single event to galvanize public interest in what had been fed to the beef they were eating. Mr. Pollan revealed that most antibiotics sold in the United States end up in animal feed, not in people, and thereby add considerable impetus to the ominous and accelerating development of antibiotic-resistant human infectious agents. Manure that gets washed into nearby streams and lakes, in turn, leaves measurable levels of hormones in the water, where fish with abnormal sexual characteristics have been found. Some scientists believe, Mr. Pollan wrote, that this build-up of hormonal compounds in the environment may be connected to falling sperm counts in human males and premature maturity in human females.

Grazing-Management Basics

Some grazing-management practices are dependent upon climate. In arid areas, according to Allan Savory, a high density of grazing cattle is necessary to break up the soil crust and to work seed and fertilizing manure and urine into the ground. In the Deep South, where high summer temperatures prohibit grass growth, some cattle owners plant warm-season annual forages for grazing when pastures aren’t producing. In our area, the Midwest, the major concern is weed control. I mow paddocks once or twice a season, just after they’ve been grazed. In general, it takes grasses and clovers about three days to begin regrowing after they’ve been grazed. You want to mow within that time window so you’re only mowing plants that the cattle didn’t graze, not cutting regrowth. Where the ground is too rocky or steep to mow, I hand-cut weeds, preferably before they go to seed.

Every two or three years, it’s a good idea to test your pasture soil. This involves taking a small shovel and a bucket and gathering samples from the top few inches of soil at several locations in the pasture. Mix up the samples, put some in a plastic bag, and send the combined sample to the soil testing laboratory. In a few weeks, you’ll get back a report showing the pH level of the soil and the nutrient levels for nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. When you submit your samples, ask the lab to test for trace minerals, too, especially calcium. If your pasture is deficient in any nutrients or minerals, you’ll need to amend the soil accordingly.

To find a soil lab in your area, get precise directions on how to take a sample, or locate lime and fertilizer dealers, start by asking your local agricultural extension agent or feed and seed dealer. Ask what time of year is best for taking samples and spreading amendments in your area, too.

Finally, pastures should not be monocultures (limited to one plant type). You don’t want to eat the same thing for every meal, and neither do your cattle. A mix of several types of grasses, a few different legumes, and an eclectic selection of other plants, such as dandelions and plantains, will furnish a nicely balanced diet for cattle. If you’re short on one of those plant categories, you can buy the seed and work it into the pasture. Ask your seed dealer, extension agent, and other specialists for advice, and then use what seems to fit your situation.

When the snow melts, the ground will be fertilized by a mix of wasted hay and manure.

Hay

When pasture is dormant due to drought or cold, your cattle will need hay, and beef cattle don’t need top-quality hay. Ideally, the hay should be a mix of grass and legumes cut before they go to seed and baled after they’ve dried thoroughly. As long as the hay isn’t moldy or nothing but stems with no leaves, it’ll do for beef cows. Pure, high-quality alfalfa or clover hay, which is high in milk-producing protein and low in body-heat-producing carbohydrates, can be harder on beef cows than old, coarse hay, but you might want to use it if you’re fattening steers during the winter. Knowing when to buy or harvest hay saves you money, time, and labor.

When to Buy or Harvest

If you’re buying hay for cows and calves, you don’t need the expensive stuff. During the growing season, keep a close eye on the weather in your region. Dry seasons quickly create hay shortages, driving prices sky-high. Buying early and in quantity during good years and storing the excess is generally your best bet. In covered storage, hay will last for years, and even round bales stored outside will last two or three years if the bales are tight and kept on dry ground. Don’t pay for any hay until you’ve dug into a few bales and checked for mold, weeds, and stem content.

If you’re having hay made for you on your land or making it yourself, don’t be in too much of a hurry. Waiting a little longer into the season to make your first cutting of hay gives you several advantages: The hay will be taller, giving you more volume. It will be higher in carbohydrates and lower in protein, which is good for keeping cattle warm in the winter. The weather in most areas will be more settled, with less likelihood of a surprise rainstorm ruining the cutting. In addition, grassland nesting birds will have a better chance of getting their babies fledged and out of the nest before the hay mower comes through.

Our local dairy farmers like to take three or four cuttings off their hayfields each year, but I take two—I’d rather have the cows harvest it by grazing a couple times than to haul out the tractor and Haybine again. This extends the grazing season and cuts my out-of-pocket feed costs. As an added benefit, the cattle fertilize as they graze.

Winter Hay Feeding

How you winter-feed your cattle depends on your setup and preferences. If you have just a few head of cattle and are using small square bales, it’s easy to construct a wooden hay feeder or buy a metal feed bunker. If you’re feeding round bales, you’ll need round bale feeders sized for the bales you have. These are widely available at farm stores, and the pieces can be hauled or even delivered in a small trailer for assembly at home.

If you’ve got a shed for the cattle, you can feed hay inside. This is nice in foul weather, but it greatly increases the volume of manure you’ll have to clean up next spring because cattle like to stick close to the hay in winter. If you feed outside, you can either feed in the same spot every day or keep moving the hay feeder to a new location.

If you’re feeding in the same location every day, the happiest situation is having the hay feeders on a cement pad. This eliminates the mud and simplifies cleanup in the spring. If you don’t have a cement pad, your dirt feeding area will become a “sacrifice area,” so churned up by the cattle that it’s unlikely you’ll have anything growing there for a long time. In either case, plan on scraping the feeding area or the shed clean in the spring and spreading the moist mix of manure and old hay on your pasture or hayfields with a manure spreader. This typically requires a Bobcat with a bucket, a tractor, and a manure spreader. If you don’t clean up the area, chances are you’ll have a terrific infestation of stable flies because the manure-hay mixture is optimal for their breeding.

The other option for winter hay feeding is “outwintering,” or feeding hay on pasture away from the barn. You move the feeders each time they’re emptied; because the manure and wasted hay is spread as the cattle are feeding, there’s not much spring cleanup. Be aware, however, that in areas where winters are wet and the ground doesn’t freeze, this system will quickly make a huge muddy mess in pastures. Where the ground freezes, it’s a terrific way to renovate poor spots in pastures: because it’s frozen, the sod won’t be badly cut up by the cattle, and, in the spring, the ground will be covered with a layer of manure mixed with hay, the best fertilizer there is.

With outwintering, you can either haul hay out to the feeders a few times a week, or you can set all of your bales out during the fall and not have to start a tractor all winter. In October, I calculate how many bales I think I’ll need for the number of cattle I’m carrying through the winter and for the length of time I think the ground will be frozen. With a tractor and hayfork, I set out the round bales in three or four rows, spaced 15–20 feet apart on all sides. When the bales are in place, I cut and pull off all of the twine (or netting wrap) by hand. I build a three-strand electric fence around three sides of the rows, leaving one side open. I roll the round-bale feeders out of storage and pop them over the bales at the head of the rows on the side that I left open. Then I stick plastic step-in posts into the next row of bales and run two strands of electric wire across them to keep the cows from the rest of the hay.

Constructing this “hay corral” takes me 20–30 hours, but it’s pleasant work in moderate weather, and it means I won’t have to start the tractor on cold mornings or fight with twine or round bales frozen to the ground. Instead, once or twice a week, I unplug the electric fence, walk out to the hay corral, move the portable electric wire back one row, tip the feeders on their sides, roll them over to the new row of bales, then walk back and plug in the fence again. This takes all of fifteen minutes. What’s left of the old bales is bedding for the cows, keeping them clean and out of the snow. In the spring, what was a poor area of pasture will be fertilized, and, by late summer, the pasture will be deep green and growing taller and lusher than anywhere else.

Grain

Cattle love grain. It brings them running when we want them, and it can produce tender, tasty beef from even mediocre animals. Although the most common grain fed to cattle is field corn, they will eat a wide variety of other offerings. For the small operator, corn is usually the cheapest, most available, and easiest grain to buy in small quantities (under a ton). Corn should be ground or rolled so the cattle can digest it better.

Talk to your feed store about other feed options in your area or additional additives, especially if you are fattening a steer for slaughter. Corn alone isn’t high enough in protein to satisfactorily fatten an animal during a short period. Corn and good pasture will do the job, but if you don’t have lush pasture or high-quality legume hay during the finishing period, you should talk to your feed dealer about formulating a finishing ration. In addition, in some regions, there are cheaper alternatives to corn, making it worth your while to inquire.

Beef cows whose purpose is to produce calves, not meat, don’t need grain if they’re on good pasture in summer and adequate hay in the winter. But I give them a little anyway, as do most beef producers I know. It’s called “training grain.” A small amount—a pound or less for each cow—brings them running every morning when I call, and getting them in when I need to work with them is never a problem. As a bonus, the cows teach their new calves about grain each year, so when it’s time to start the calves on grain, they know exactly what to do.

You should start calves on grain no later than when you wean them. If you want to start them before weaning, set up a “creep feeder” that will keep the cows out of the calves’ grain. A creep feeder is a pen or shed with an opening too narrow for cows but wide enough for calves. Inside is a bunker feeder for the calves. I generally put a board over the opening as well to make it too low for a cow to squeeze under. If you have an old shed not being used for anything else, it might work well for a creep feeder.

Until you put weaned calves on a finishing ration, grain isn’t essential to their diets, but it will help them grow a little faster. Many cattle owners “rough” calves through the winter on hay alone and don’t start them on grain until four months or so before slaughter. But feeding weaned calves a pound or two of grain per head per day will quickly teach them to come when called, help them grow, and keep them tame.

ADVICE FROM THE FARM Feeding Cattle We have no barn. The round bales are stored outside. The cattle are wintered in a half-wooded horseshoe “coulee” of about 40 acres, with a year-round spring. We feed the round bales right on the ground, and the cows clean it up pretty good. What little they do not eat is their bedding. No sense in having the cows eat all the hay and then haul in straw to a barn just to have a damp place where the sun doesn’t shine and disease builds up. —Mike Hanley I probably have them on a finishing ration for four to seven months because I don’t feed a lot of grain. I put them in a little early, and I don’t feed them really heavily, maybe 15–20 pounds of a mix of corn and barley. The rest is silage and hay. I think you get a better meat and fewer health problems. —Donna Foster For finishing at home, doing it by the pail method—buying your corn and oats and protein supplement and mixing it yourself—saves the extra expense of having the mill mix it. A lot [of supplements] contain antibiotics and stuff, and we don’t use those. —Rudy Erickson Consider putting up oat hay, sweet clover, sorghum-sudan hybrid mixes, forages mixed with grains, and soybean hay. All these are things I’ve seen put up in my lifetime, and with the new equipment today it can be done a lot easier than in the old days. Any of these fed properly to livestock is very good feed. —Dave Nesja

Feeding Dairy Calves

Dairy bull calves need a lot of extra care and special feeding for the first few months. While a beef calf gets as much of his mother’s milk and affection as he wants for the first six months or more of life, a dairy calf loses his mother and his mother’s milk within three days of birth. So be kind to these babies, even though they’re often incredibly stubborn. They’ll be a little lost and stressed and vulnerable to sickness.

If you buy dairy calves, pick up a sack of milk replacer for each calf from the feed store and a two-quart calf bottle and nipple per calf from the farm supply store. Follow the directions on the sack for how to mix the replacer, how often to feed, and at what temperature.

At first, it may take a little persuading to get the calf to drink from the bottle. If he won’t take the nipple, try backing him into a corner and then straddling him with your legs. Pull his head up and hold it with one hand, stick the nipple in his mouth with the other hand, and squeeze a little milk onto his tongue. Calves usually catch on pretty quickly. To prevent choking, don’t hold the bottle any higher than the height of the calf’s shoulder. Calves drink amazingly fast, and the milk will be gone long before their sucking instinct is satisfied.

Calves will try to suck on each other, which isn’t a great idea, so distract them with calf feed. This is a sweetened grain mix that should be fed free-choice (available at all times) from the time they’re a few days old. Take some in your hand and stick it in their mouths after each bottle feeding until they figure out how to eat it themselves. Feed it in a bucket or box attached to the side of their pen, placed high enough that they won’t poop in it (too often). In case you can’t get them outside in a small area with some green grass to nibble once they’re a few days old, keep some high-quality hay available for them. They need to get used to hay while they’re still young and open-minded about trying new things.

One sack of milk replacer and one to two sacks of calf feed will raise a dairy calf until weaning at eight weeks of age or older. Grain feeding should continue according to the directions on the sack of calf feed, with a gradual transition to an adult ration as the calf’s digestive system matures. Get a calf outside and on pasture as early as possible. You can buy calves in winter, but they’re more susceptible then to pneumonia and scours (diarrhea), so provide them with a draft-free, deeply bedded pen, and keep it clean. Give them a good grooming with a cattle brush every day. This mimics the cow’s licking and is stimulating and comforting for the calf. A happy calf is more likely to be a healthy calf.

Finishing Rations

There are two approaches to fattening a steer for your freezer. The first is to use time and low-cost inputs, and the second is to speed up the process with a formulated ration fed at a high rate. The first approach usually makes the most sense for small farms because it doesn’t require an expensive ration or a separate pen. If you don’t have any land for grazing, it’s possible to put a weaned calf directly onto a finishing ration, provided it’s the right breed and a fast-growing animal. However, the animal will still need plenty of forage-based fiber in its diet. Most calves need some time to mature before they will fatten and are better off on pasture or hay until they’re at least a year old.

You also have some choice as to when you send an animal to the processing plant. You can have “baby beef” from a steer as young as a year, although steers are normally kept until they’re more mature and have put on some exterior fat. A steer from one of the English breeds can be ready for slaughter as young as sixteen months, while a steer from a continental breed may not finish until it’s two or more years old, depending to a large extent on how much grain you feed. On a small farm, it’s practical to keep the steers on pasture and feed them grain once or twice a day. If the pasture is excellent, 4 or 5 pounds of corn (usually with a protein supplement) each day will have most steers ready for slaughter in three to four months. Generally, it’s a good idea to finish a steer before the age of twenty months to ensure a tender carcass. Please remember, however, that these are just rules of thumb; finishing cattle is not an exact science.

If the steer is on good pasture, it’s helpful if you can time the finishing so that it coincides with the end of the grazing season. Cattle gain weight faster and more cheaply on good pasture than on hay. If the steer is out with a cow herd, he can be trained to come to a separate pen for his ration. To do this, watch where the steer normally is when the herd comes in for the morning drink or grain ration. If he’s at the front of the line, close the gate behind him and move him forward into another pen. If he’s at the back of the line, close the gate behind the cows and feed the steer with a low bucket in the pasture. If he’s in the middle, you’ll have to finesse getting the cows ahead and keeping the steer behind for a few days until he figures out to stay behind for his ration.

Grass Finishing

Cattle can be finished on grass, but it takes expertise to turn out high-quality beef without grain. If you are interested in grass-finishing, you first will need to buy the right cattle. Short-legged animals from the English breeds are probably your best bet. Second, you will need superb pasture, lush and high enough in protein that it will enable a steer to gain no fewer than 1.7 pounds per day for the last ninety days before slaughter. In most areas, this takes a combination of pastures and planted annual forages plus experienced management. However, any cattle can be raised to maturity on grass and slaughtered for edible beef.

Finished or Fat? Most of us can’t just walk up to a steer, jam a thumb into his back fat, and know that he’s ready. Two beef-raising friends, Barry and Libby Quinn, told me that you just have to develop an eye for finish. Former extension agent, current friend, and lifelong beef producer Dan Riley told us that a steer is ready for slaughter when you can see the fat around its cod, over its pinbones, and on the rear flank. If a steer has fat around the tailhead, it’s close to grading prime; if it has a fat brisket, it’s too fat.

Water

Clean water should be available at all times for your cattle. If the water isn’t fresh, they may not drink as much as they should. Tip the water tank a couple of times a season and scrub out the algae. A float valve, available at farm supply stores, will keep the tank full when you’re not around. In below-freezing weather, install a tank heater and plan on filling the tank daily because a float valve freezes up in cold weather.

Unless you run a hose out to the paddocks, your cattle will need to come into the barnyard for a drink. When building your paddocks, create lanes that give your cattle easy access to the barnyard. These can be built with the same portable fencing used for the paddocks and should be about 10 feet wide. Gates can be made by tying a gate handle onto the wire and adding a loop at the far gatepost to hook the handle through.

It’s not necessary to have water available in the pasture. Cattle will walk a long way to get water, even when there’s snow on the ground, and that’s usually good for them and their hooves. Cattle need regular exercise to stay healthy, and they can be a little lazy about it. Some producers still rely on snow to water their cattle in the winter, but it’s difficult for them to get enough to stay fully hydrated. Eating snow also chills them, and they’ll lose weight burning calories to stay warm.

Salt and Minerals

Salt is essential to cattle, and the best way to make sure that they get enough is to provide free-choice loose salt in a feeder protected from rain and snow. Buy or build a two-compartment feeder and put salt in one side and a mineral mix geared for your area in the other side.

Mineral deficiency used to be a common cause of disease in cattle. The diseases varied from region to region, depending on what was deficient in the soils. That’s why it’s important to get a mix formulated for your area of the country. As with salt, it’s easier for cattle to get enough minerals when the mix is loose rather than in a block.

For steers being finished for slaughter, getting enough minerals and vitamins into their feed is especially important. These can be mixed in the finishing ration according to your feed dealer’s directions or fed free-choice in a separate feeder as you would normally do with the cow herd. If fed free-choice, the vitamin and mineral mix should be freshened at least once a week.

Poisonous Plants No matter where you live, chances are that some plants in your pasture could poison your cattle. Fortunately, though, most (though not all) poisonous plants taste icky. If your cattle have enough to eat, they probably won’t touch anything that’s bad for them. But if your pastures are stressed by drought or have been heavily treated with nitrogen fertilizer, or if it’s very early in the spring and the only plant that’s green is also poisonous, you should be alert for problems. Six different classes of poisons have been identified in various plants, the most important being the alkaloid and glycoside groups. Alkaloids affect the nervous system, causing loss of motor control, bizarre behavior, and death. Jimson weed, a common species of the western United States, is probably the best-known example of a plant that kills with an alkaloid poison. Glycosides basically cause death by suffocating cells. The animal is breathing, but the oxygen in the bloodstream is blocked from being transported into the individual cells. The buttercup, which brightens low pastures in early spring, is a familiar glycoside-containing plant. Other familiar plants that are dangerous to cattle include black locust, black nightshade, bracken fern, castor bean, curly dock, death camas, dogbane, horsetail, locoweed, lupine, milkweed (several species, but not all), oleander, pigweed, and tobacco. White snakeroot, common throughout the Midwest, causes the “trembles” in cattle and can kill humans who drink milk from cows grazing it. Thousands of settlers in the Midwest died of milk sickness in the early 1800s, including Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s mother. For more information, contact your local agricultural extension agent.