Hello fellow Galloway breeders, Harley's post brings up a question that I have had about a historical statement that I have heard before and wondered about "As we already know......the higher the roughage the ration is" I heard this statement after I had worked with my vet and fed 35 heifers a VERY hot ration for 45 days. The heifers did exceptionally well on this ration some gaining 8 lbs/day. I then sent 40+ mixed steers and heifers to a feedlot that was use to feeding Galloway cattle. The feedlot manager made the statement to me" that he supposed that I didn't want my animals to be fed the last finishing ration that all the other cattle got." (rations go in starter, middle and finishing stages) I told him that I wasn't sure were the idea came from that Galloway cattle did not do well on finishing rations, but that as far as I was concerned he was the expert in feeding cattle and it was his job to feed my cattle whatever he thought best. Over the next several years the feedlot fed my cattle to finish and grade just like all the other cattle in the lot. I retained ownership and got performance data on each and every one. As a group they averaged better than the other cattle in the retained ownership program. Feedlots and bull developing operations tend to feed higher roughage than they did twenty years ago, I wonder how well this statement still applies? Do the Canadian Galloway bulls get fed different in the feed efficiency trials than the other breeds? Do the steers at Olds College get fed differently than the other breeds? Maybe some Canadian can help educate me on this?
I learned a great deal about my cattle and some of the bloodlines I had in this experiment and the lessons resonate very loudly to me when they are seen as cold hard cash. A good amount for good animals and a smaller amount for not so good ones And the really strange lesson: the animal that looks the best does not always receive that largest amount of money. One of the biggest lessons: not all Galloway cattle marble before they put on backfat!! In fact some will get quite fat on the outside and still be Select Grade. Galloways, just like the other breeds, have a wide variation of characteristics within the breed. There are bloodlines that will finish Choice or better Yield Grade 1 or 2 in the feedlot and that are bloodlines that will never do this. There are bloodlines that will do the same on grass and there are bloodlines that don't. Promotion of Galloways should always start with each individual Galloway breeder knowing their own animals. Never promote animals to do things that you don't know they will do. I agree with Harley that the AGBA is for registration and promotion of Galloway cattle. We need good affordable ways of promoting both, the grass-fed industry type of cattle and the feedlot or mainstream industry type of cattle. Deb Vance's work on Brisket Disease or Judy Decker's Grass Genetics conference come right to my mind. Get involved!! It's the breeders that need to spearhead these type of things and it is the AGBA's role to provide assistance as it can. Sarah Bowman Hang 5 Galloways PS I can't help myself, I need to share with everyone some of the currents that are flowing in the grass fed industry. When was the last time any Galloway breeder has talked to someone that runs a thousand cows and wants to run Galloway bulls? When was the last time that some breeder has talked to someone that wants to buy 10,000 Galloway cows? When was the last time..... wants to buy truckloads of Galloway steers? If you are active in the grass-fed circles the answers to all of these would be within the last TWO YEARS!! ----- Original Message ----- From: Harley & Michelle Blegen To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 10:46 AM Subject: Re: Fwd: Ration to Increase CLA Yields More Marbling Hi everyone, I would like to start off by saying I agree with Kevin, that we have the breed that does this naturally. However, I would like to thank Steve for bringing this to our attention. The AGBA is an organization for the record keeping and promotion of Galloway cattle. We are not, and cannot all be grass finishers. Some of us don't have enough grass, or the right grass to justify it. That doesn't mean our cattle can't finish on grass, just that we don't. We already know that in a feedlot, Galloways perform better, the higher roughage the ration is. If there is information out there that can help Galloway breeders produce a better product, I applaud the effort of letting us all in on it. Thank you Steve. Promoting Galloways Harley Blegen Please note: message attached
