finishing with out burning the guts

Need some advice..
Around here they want the 4-H steers pig fat, and it is difficult to put large amounts of grain in them without burning them
out.
Family members have been feeding 4-H steers over the years, but they just get gaining good and then they get the "water-diarrhea" ( grain over load--acidosis ) and tend to go off their grain a bit,and then the gaining slows down.
A lot of the other people keep shoving the grain to there animals as much as they will eat, anyway, even if their animals have "water diarrhea" -which I disagree with, We have always backed off and let the animals system settle down and then restarted them. People say we are dumb to back off till they settle back down, but I have seen other peoples animals go totally off their grain, some permanently,and even some peoples animals have died --probably from too much grain.
I talked to a feed specialist and he said putting a bit of baking soda helps, it does help , (but not a cure all- maybe didn't use enough? ) and chopping the grain with the hay. Well we do not have a chopper so we can mix the grain and hay so that don't work.
We are not feeding anywhere near as much as some people-- figure about 2% of body weight- feeding "altwasser" feed a local mix of barley, corn, beet pulp. We started mixing a small amount of oats in, as a "cool" feed, but he still had a touch of acidosis..
Would more beet pulp help??
any thoughts??
thanks

I feed my sale bulls on a custom grain mix from my Co-op and they get up to 3% BW or more with no problems however the recommendation from the nutritionist that formulates the ration is that they have a constant supply of barley straw and nothing else. Barley straw being the stubble after the grain has been harvested.

Ken

That is the important part of the feeding program is to get enough long stem roughage into the animal to maintain rumen ph. Straw and hay works great. You can also feed 4-6 oz. of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) per head per day to prevent acidosis. I assume you're dividing the ration in to a minimum of two feedings per day and can make the hay/straw available at all times.

The steer is being fed twice a day, both grain and grass hay, some is fine and some is coarser.. Not a lot of straw in this country, has to be trucked a long ways in so fairly pricey...
We were feeding 1 heaping tablespoon of baking soda with each feeding of grain, am sort of guessing as to how much in ounces that would be, sort of thinking along the line of a whiskey shot glass being about an ounce, so am guessing that a heaping tablespoon would be about an ounce... Am guessing the steer weighs about 1000 lbs so maybe we should "up" the baking soda??
thanks for the replies..

Nite Hawk":1xn4mdez said:

The steer is being fed twice a day, both grain and grass hay, some is fine and some is coarser.. Not a lot of straw in this country, has to be trucked a long ways in so fairly pricey...
We were feeding 1 heaping tablespoon of baking soda with each feeding of grain, am sort of guessing as to how much in ounces that would be, sort of thinking along the line of a whiskey shot glass being about an ounce, so am guessing that a heaping tablespoon would be about an ounce... Am guessing the steer weighs about 1000 lbs so maybe we should "up" the baking soda??
thanks for the replies..

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I would up the soda to 6oz. But good leafy hay will help somme also.

going to try upping the soda and see how he does..
thanks.

It's been 20 years but I just remembered we also got something from the vet to help repair the damage already done. Might ask your vet. But we added the soda also.

Nite Hawk":al5x9gsp said:

The steer is being fed twice a day, both grain and grass hay, some is fine and some is coarser.. Not a lot of straw in this country, has to be trucked a long ways in so fairly pricey...
We were feeding 1 heaping tablespoon of baking soda with each feeding of grain, am sort of guessing as to how much in ounces that would be, sort of thinking along the line of a whiskey shot glass being about an ounce, so am guessing that a heaping tablespoon would be about an ounce... Am guessing the steer weighs about 1000 lbs so maybe we should "up" the baking soda??
thanks for the replies..

Click to expand...

If you have the opportunities check and see how often the calf is chewing his cude. Ruminating is at least a sign of a healthy rumen and the excessive saliva created during rumination is a natural buffer.

Sometimes it just the individual animal. But, I agree, the bicarb & good hay is key to keeping him healthy.

How has the animal been doing? I was going to suggest if possible feed high quality hay first thing in the morning (small square bales would be really nice here) and then come back and feed your ration later. Hopefully he's a little hungry like most cattle first thing in the morning comes to the bunk and eats that hay. From your post I took getting hay into the diet as the main problem (sounded like you couldn't mix the hay and grain). The other thing to note is barley feeds hotter than corn (breaks down faster- more acidosis prone).