Sale day!

This week has been exciting for us! One of the more prestigious sales was held on Tuesday in West Branch, MI. This sale only happens once a year so we like to go, even if we don't need to buy any cattle for it. This year we were in the unique position of having two different custom feeding customers attend this sale to buy cattle to send to our barn! So we prepped the night before and the night after the sale we had 93 new calves show up on a semi. 

Long hours just became longer.

New calves, and especially 93 new mouths to feed means that chores are longer and we spend a much larger portion of our time in the slatted floor barn than normal. Our new beef calves eat hay on arrival that we top dress with grain, the amount of both depends on the number of calves in each pen. This has to be done by hand for about 3 weeks. This is the only way we can successfully feed hay in this particular barn and it makes for a very tedious task. After their first 3 weeks, we work them up to a ration that is mostly corn silage with some other ingredients sprinkled in to make sure they are getting the correct nutrient balance. 

Our growing goals.

Our goal for our beef calves is to grow their frame, or their bones, first and then get them to put on muscle. This ensures that the calves have a big enough frame to weigh about 1,450 pounds when they are finished. A calf grown too fast will finish out at a lighter weight and because we get paid on a per pound basis when we sell the cattle, we really want them to hit our target weight.

After the calves reach the 800-900 pound mark we step up their ration to the Holstein finishing diet. This ration is "hotter" than the one that we start them on which means it has more energy for the calf to use to turn into muscle. It is at this size that we want to see the animal fill out and really start gaining muscle mass. We want to see the cattle gain the correct amount of muscle so that they can start laying down fat, especially intramuscular fat which is known as marbling. Marbling is the fat inside a steak that gives it its delicious taste. 

Management is our middle name.

Managing these beef calves is a task that we take very seriously. With most of our beef calves being custom fed this year we want to make sure that each calf performs to its potential so our customers are happy with them and us. When it comes down to it, we treat each calf like it is our own and provide them with the best care we can from the day they arrive until the day they leave our slatted-floor barn.