Beef producers have been raising animals in feedlots for decades and they continue to ask an important question: how much forage do beef cattle need to both stay healthy and build carcass?  

University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers and other Canadian scientists are in the process of conducting several studies in the hope of providing definitive answers. Indeed, the results of one study were just published in January’s edition of Translational Animal Science, a periodical of Oxford Academic, Oxford University Press. 

At the helm of the project is USask’s Dr. Greg Penner (PhD), professor in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources’ Department of Animal and Poultry Science, who holds a Centennial Enhancement Chair in Ruminant Nutritional Physiology. He noted that the National Cattle Feeders’ Association has organized a voluntary auditing program for feedlots to ensure production practices are of the highest standards. 

Dietary evaluation is a crucial part of the audit. 

“There’s an interest to ensure we are meeting fiber requirements for finishing cattle,” Penner said. “When we look at the information available, we currently don’t have the data to predict what that fiber requirement is or how we should represent fiber. 

“This study is the first real adventure into trying to understand what parts of fiber are important for feedlot cattle and what levels we should be feeding to optimize health.” 

Penner lured Dr. Murillo Pereira (PhD), a post-doctoral research fellow, from Brazil to be lead scientist on the USask-based projects to understand the role of fiber in feedlot cattle diets. 

“I’d never seen snow before I came here,” admitted Pereira, whose family owns a beef operation in his home country. “It’s awesome how it’s possible to finish cattle in a feedlot system in minus forty degrees. 

“For me it was a good challenge and a good experience to learn more about the Canadian system.” 

Pereira and his colleagues performed the study at the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence (LFCE) near Clavet, Sask. They separated 450 animals into 30 pens of 15 each, grouping them by weight to improve consistency.  

The scientists began with an adaptation period after purchasing them from an auction market. At first, they were fed 50 per cent each forage and high-concentrate diet. Over 24 days, the amount of forage — largely barley or wheat mixed with straw — was reduced to 10 per cent. 

“This period is really important for animals,” he said. “We have to adapt to the physiology of the animals. Inside the rumen we have microorganisms like bacteria and protozoa, and we have to adapt (these) to new feed. This is a challenge for the feedlot. The first 30, 40 days in the feedlot are the most dangerous period because we are changing (the diet) a lot. 

“We try to work with high energy diets (so) we can have more performance — we can have more body weight gain, we can improve the carcass characteristics, we can have more fat in the carcass, all while improving feed efficiency — and with that the producer can make more money.” 

What Pereira and his colleagues discovered surprised Penner. First, the barley silage was of better quality than the wheat, despite using best harvest practices for both. 

More importantly, even at the low rate of 10 per cent inclusion, greater forage quality proved to offer benefits. 

“We didn’t expect to pick up quality grade differences and we’re still not sure how to explain the quality responses,” he said. “They’re very consistent. The quality parameters, using two independent techniques, both point in the same direction. 

“I had expected growth rate or feed intake or feed conversion to be the factors affected, but we did not see that. This is a first step to perhaps encourage more attention to the forage component in finishing diets.” 

The main goals of the studies are to refine and measure the amount of forage in feedlot diets while maintaining performance, but there is also an eye on environmental factors. 

“If we put too much forage in the diet, we decrease performance,” Penner explained. “It takes more feed to produce the same amount of beef. They will produce more methane, so we will have a larger environmental footprint; it will take more days on feed. 

“But if we feed too little forage, we risk digestive disorders for cattle. We’re trying to find the balance: what is enough for the cattle to optimize their digestive health and still have all the benefits to reduce our environmental impact.” 

The research continues. Pereira hopes to have a second paper completed by July on a different but related study, and other work is ongoing elsewhere. The USask contingent is part of a large collaborative team including researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Lethbridge, Alta., and a researcher at the University of Guelph. 

“We’ve completed three experiments now at USask, one at Lethbridge and in the process of another in Lethbridge and started one at Guelph,” Penner said. “There’s quite a few locations being utilized to make sure we have a broad array of cattle, housing conditions and available feeds.” 

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Grazing pregnant cows in fields during the winter is not new in Western Canada, but no research has been conducted on how well animals fare when they graze on corn residue – the leaves, the stalks, the husks, the cobs, everything that’s left in the field after the high-moisture corn kernels have been harvested.

“We were very limited in where we could grow corn in Canada, but it’s become more popular because new hybrid varieties of corn have popped up that are made for shorter season and lower temperatures,” said Rachel Carey, a PhD provisional candidate who is co-supervised by USask animal scientist Dr. Greg Penner (PhD) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researcher Dr. Tim McAllister (PhD).

“Profit margins for farmers and cattle feeders are extremely tight. Anything they can do to decrease the cost of feeding animals while maintaining (growth) performance is important. We are looking at the possible economic benefits of using these alternative corn products.”

Carey’s research is addressing the old adage “waste not, want not” with her whole-systems study.

In the spring of 2020, 200 acres of corn was seeded at the university’s Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence, south of Clavet, Sask.

Seventy-one acres were harvested as snaplage, the term used to describe a method where the ear of the corn is harvested or what would be snapped off the corn stalk, while the 94 acres were harvested as high-moisture corn and 35 for corn silage. In all three cases, the feed was fermented and, starting in February, the corn was fed to two groups of cattle at the centre’s feedlot and in its metabolism barn. Carey will be tracking the animals’ weight gain and evaluating how well the animals are digesting the corn feed.

She started the bred cow component of her research on Nov. 25 when 30 cows began feeding on the high-moisture corn residue left in windrows. Another 30 were in a control group, feeding on barley that was swathed at the hard dough stage.

It’s been an eye-opening experience for Carey, who was raised in Texas.

“This is my first winter grazing study ever! I thought Canadians were crazy when I first heard about winter grazing, but these girls are pros. Once you have the cows trained to look for the swaths and nose around in the snow, they find the feed. I was amazed at how fast they found the swaths. They knew exactly where they were.”

To ensure that the cows ate all the feed in each paddock, electric fence was moved about every three days. The cows were allowed access to a new paddock in the pasture after they had cleaned up the residue or swaths in one paddock.

“If you allow access to the whole field, they’ll go and get all the good parts. You have to force them a little bit to eat what they don’t like, kind of like getting your kids to eat peas.”

Carey wasn’t able to feed cows using the snaplage residue because a winter storm in early November covered the snaplage residue with snow too deep for the cattle to find the feed.

Carey’s project took another hit with freezing rain and heavy, wet snow in early January. She and Penner made the difficult decision to move all the bred cows off the fields and to the centre’s Forage and Cow-Calf Research and Teaching Unit where they will continue to be fed.

As disappointed as she is, Carey realizes that she is conducting real world research with real world conditions, the same unpredictable weather conditions cattle farmers in Western Canada face every year.

“It’s hard to compete with Mother Nature,” said Carey with a laugh.

While the winter grazing was a few weeks short of Carey’s plan, all is not lost. She is still collecting and analyzing information. The cows on the high-moisture corn residue as well as those on the barley swaths maintained their body weight and their body condition score, indicating how much fat the cows are storing as they head into calving. And the animals have left behind valuable fertilizer.

“There’s a lot of manure out there. It’s been packed down, trampled down, broken down by the animals moving over the land. We’ve increased the nitrogen content of the soil. The field will need less fertilizer next year.”

The road that led Carey to Saskatoon is long and has taken a few turns. She grew up in a small city in Texas and, while she didn’t grow up on farm, she occasionally visited her uncle’s cattle operation. After teaching high school for five years, Carey went back to school to pursue veterinary college but after taking a course in ruminant nutrition at New Mexico State University, she switched gears and enrolled in a master’s program in animal science instead. From there, she worked for three years with a feedlot consulting company based in Calgary.

The research funded by Saskatchewan Cattleman’s Association and Beef Cattle Research Council and the seed is provided by Pioneer Hi-Bred.

Carey’s research will continue until the summer of 2022.

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