OT steer feed

I have about 6ac with every thing from rocks to Bermuda grass. I got a 6 month old steer to keep the grass down where I can't mow. What should I feed him besides hay?

More hay. If you are wanting to fatten him up, I would add 1% of his body weight in corn. Get him going good that way bump it up to 2%. Free choice on quality mineral, and salt.
Depending on your hay, you might need to add a bit of protein in for him too.

You will need to give him some ground feed to help him grow. With just pasture and hay it will take him way too long to finish out.

What breed of steer is he. That makes a small difference in how you feed them too. Holsteins usually grow faster early but real flatten out when you get to the real top part of finishing them. I usually give them a little higher protein feed until they reach 1000 lbs.

500 lbs. to 1000 lbs. a 14% protein feed is what I use. Then 1000 lbs. to finish a 9-10% feed is good enough. IF you have high protein hay then you can just use ground corn and minerals.

YOU DO NEED TO grind the corn for the steer to get most of the starch out of the kernel. You do not have to powder grind it like for hogs but at least bust every kernel.

Start the steer out with maybe a half a five gallon bucket twice each day. Then after he has been eating that for a few weeks or so then step it up to where he is just cleaning it up a few hours before the next feeding. I never limit feed a steer after they are used to a high energy diet. DO NOT just start to feed him full bore right away. You can founder him. That is why you limit feed him at first.

IF you keep the feed and hay in front of him he will finish out much faster and marbled better over slow feeding him. Most of the time most of my steers are done in under 18 months or so. IF they get much older than that that steer is just not going to finish very well.

Depends on what you plan to do with him and how much and what quality grass you have and the type and quality of the hay you are feeding. If you have only warm season grass going into winter and grass hay then you don't have much energy or protein in that ration, on the other hand, if you have plenty of annual rye grass and good alfalfa hay then you have an excellent ration in its self. If you will sell him as a feeder in 6 months or so you want frame and cheap gain, if you are going to slaughter him yourself in another year to year and a half then you want cheap growth followed by a finishing period on high energy diet. If you have low quality grass but high quality hay fed free choice he should easily gain over a pound per day this winter then really kick off when spring grass comes out and gain 2-3 pounds per day where you can get him to around 1000 pounds before having to feed grain and supplement.

I dont know jd In my experience a 5 gallon bucket a day even split up is to much to start then on. I would cut that in half in fear of sickening him right on the start.you can ramp him up fairly quickly once hes use to it but start him off slow.

I am currently running an "experiment" on two Holstein steers at my place. I got them as bottle calves and gave them calf starter and ground feed til they were six months old. Since then they have only had hay and pasture, and are now 15 months old. They are definitely not as fat as ones I have fed corn all along to, however they look good. I have saved a ton of money on corn, oats, supplements and labor for grinding and feeding rations. They will be going to butcher in 3-4 months and then I will see how the meat turns out as far as taste and toughness. If the meat is good, it will be the way I do it from now on, just because of the savings on inputs. But, I just raise for my own use.

I agree with JD, corn should be cracked to get starch out.

(quoted from post at 11:34:55 11/02/14) I dont know jd In my experience a [b:72752222e7]5 gallon bucket a day even split up is to much to start then on[/b:72752222e7]. I would cut that in half in fear of sickening him right on the start.you can ramp him up fairly quickly once hes use to it but start him off slow.

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ave to agree.
A 5 gaIIon bucket is enough to start 10 head.