Living Requirements and Natural Instincts in the Feedlot
Every living thing has natural instincts and requirements for life. Plants know to grow their leaves up and their roots down and animals know to find shelter when a storm is coming. There tends to be the misconception that when you put an animal in a feedlot or farm situation you are stripping that animal of all of their natural instincts and forcing them into an unnatural situation. This couldn't be farther from the truth, through years and years of research we are now able to work with an animal's instincts and living requirements to give them an even better life than ever before.
Working Cattle
In a feedlot working cattle is something that has to happen because, when you put a couple hundred animals together in pens you have the inevitable sickness. The best way to combat disease is to prevent it from happening altogether. So, at the very least cattle need vaccines and dewormer to stay healthy and antibiotics should they ever get sick. The safest way to give the cattle shots is to have a specifically designed working system for them.
Calves just waiting their turn in the chute.
Cattle have a flight zone, which means when you get too close to them they will want to move farther away from you. We can use this flight zone to get them to move in the direction we want them to go in a safe and calm matter. We do this by entering the flight zone of a steer at certain points. Walking behind the steer will make him go forward, walking towards his head will make him turn away from you and switch directions, and moving towards his shoulder will cause him to pause and watch you for ques to decide which way he to go.
Our working system is set up to use the cattle's flight zone to our and their advantage. The pen we sort groups out of is just wide enough for the cattle to pass by us in a single file so we can sort off the correct number from each group. The sweep tub is designed to make the cattle think they are going back in the same direction they came while still moving away from us. The chute leading up to the headgate has an opening at eye level so as we walk past the cattle they can see us move from their head to rear, which causes them to walk forward with very little persuasion. The headgate itself is just open enough so that they can see daylight which encourages them to put their head through it and catch themselves in it. The squeeze cute can apply pressure to both sides of the steer which has a calming effect on the animal. All of these things allow us to work the cattle while they are calm and relaxed, which is the safest way for both us and them.
Feed Choices
Sometimes our cattle get more hay than grain because of their current nutritional needs.
As we've mentioned before, a steer's digestive system is very different than our own. With the four compartment stomach, they can digest food that we could never get nutritional value from. In the wild, cattle would eat mainly grass with very little variation. They are designed to be grazing animals but they also have the ability to store a lot of food so they can eat when the getting is good and move on before predators arrive. We take what we know about a steer's digestive system and use that information to devise the best feeding plan we can for each life stage of the animal.
These cattle are eating mostly corn silage.
Through research, we know a significant amount about exactly what nutritional balance a steer needs at any point in their life. With this knowledge, we can correctly formulate a ration that meets every one of their needs better than ever before! Each steer in our feedlot has a ration specifically formulated for their life stage and the desired rate of growth. We also know exactly how much roughage (grass-like feed) a steer needs to stay healthy and how much grain we can feed them while still keeping their digestive system nice and happy. Along with the composition of the feed, we can give each steer the perfect amount of bunk space to eat their daily meals at. Calves like to come up and all eat at once so we make sure we have plenty of room for everyone at the "table" while older steers take turns eating so they require less space to access the "buffet".
Barn Design
Cattle in the wild, out on the range, and on pasture do not have to worry about ventilation in the living environment. Cattle in the feedlot in this state do because they have to have some kind of barn access to avoid the bad weather. In each barn, we own we are always assessing the amount of ventilation and the general air flow. Though it might seem like a nice gesture to close a barn up when it's cold, windy, rainy, or snowy the opposite is almost always true. Cattle are designed to withstand weather extremes much better than humans can. With a fur coat that keeps them dry, warm, and cool they are very good at regulating their own temperature no matter what the outside temperature may be. Making sure there is enough airflow through the barn reduces the amount of illness overall and makes for happier cattle. As long as we provide a windbreak from those stubborn Northern winter gales and a roof to keep everyone dry, the cattle can pretty much handle everything else on their own.
The transition barn has a curtain on the back to better regulate airflow.
A barn that houses livestock has to be filled to the correct density or animal per square foot. We give a steer that has both an outside lot and barn access 40 square feet of barn space and a steer without outside access at least 50 square feet of pen space. This space per head keeps the cattle from getting too cramped and stressed which helps reduce disease outbreak. Adequate space also allows the cattle to lay down whenever they need a rest or time to digest. This is especially important in pens that have no outside lot; the cattle have to have enough room to move around each other without plowing their way through each time. Though given the chance, they do enjoy pushing each other around from time to time!
Raising cattle in a feedlot is not about making it more convenient for us, it's about providing the best environment we possibly can for the cattle. With modern research and technology, we can give a steer the best possible life he can imagine that includes everything he could ever need. Feeding cattle is not just throwing a group together and dumping a pile of corn in front of them until they are fat. Feeding cattle is the scientific art of managing living animals by using their requirements for life and natural instincts to create the most excellent living conditions for the entirety of that animal's life.