I leave it to people to weigh out the pros and cons for themselves. Cattle like to eat a fair amount of their feed shortly after daylight and a large amount of their day's feed in the couple hours before it's dark. And so we think it's important to have feed available for them at those times. |
Implants don't have to have a detrimental effect on grade. Match the potency of the implant with the amount of energy in the calves' recent diet. |
It probably starts late gestation. |
That means his maintenance requirement goes up and there's less energy available for gain so you end up with the same feed intake but less average daily gain for the day. |
The very worst we've ever gotten out of feeding once a day in the afternoon was equal performance to twice a day. |
There's no magic number. There's not a magic age. |
We don't understand all of that, but people studying grazing cows figured out long ago that cows actually consume the bigger portion of their feed for the day in the late afternoon. |
We have to manage cattle to minimize discounts and capture any premiums. |
We know we have to keep cattle healthy to get them to grade. |
When you sell the cattle at the end, you probably have the same overall feed intake, but your average daily gain won't be as good and your feed conversion will be higher so your feed cost to gain goes up. |