1996 Annual Report for FS96-045
Grazing Alternatives to Tall Fescue for Stocker Cattle
Summary
Feeder/stocker cattle that come from the southeast sometimes have the stigma of being of low quality and having sub-optimal health. This results in lower prices being offered to the grower. Consequently, producing cost-efficient and healthy feeder cattle is a prime concern to growers.
Much research has been conducted on improving forage grasses but there have been varying degrees of adoption in upper-middle Tennessee. This is often because forage species developed as alternatives for other regions of the country usually have higher costs and/or increased management requirements over the commonly used tall fescue.
Tall fescue provides excellent production in the fall and spring but leaves much to be desired in the summer. Due to fescue’s ability to grow almost anywhere, many producers take an either/or approach and grow either all fescue or plant exclusively some other forage.
When stocker cattle are grazed locally on endophyte infected tall fescue during the summer months they generally exhibit reduced daily weight gains and a less desirable appearance. These cattle take longer to get started on rations at feedlots, have more health problems than those grazed on other forage, and receive discounted prices.
The producer has noticed that even a limited introduction of crabgrass into a local grazing system as an alternative to tall fescue has provided measurable improvement in marketability, summer weight gains, feedlot performance, and profitability. Crabgrass is economical to produce, adaptable, and naturally occurring. It has the potential to work well in rotations with wheat and ryegrass eliminating the need to tie up the land year-round to produce summer grazing as some other species require.
This producer integrated forage species based on their seasonal production to provide maximum grazing. By blending forage species to suit land quality and area limitations he planned to provide maximum grazing forage for his livestock.
Purchased stocker cattle were randomly divided into two groups. Each group was to be grazed rotationally on either tall fescue (with some clover lezpedeza) or crabgrass and wheat/ryegrass until they weighed approximately 750 pounds (3 - 6 months). The grazing rotations were to be based on forage availability using temporary fencing where feasible.
Forage availability estimates were to be determined and stocking rate data collected. The plan was to harvest excess forages as hay and determine total yield. The producer planned to take forage samples on a regular basis and analyze them to determine the nutritional quality of the two forage groups.
The producer had the cattle weighed as they were sorted to a grazing system and thereafter at thirty day intervals. He collected data on average daily weight gain, field feed conversion estimates, individual performance relative to initial efficiency, total feed conversion, carcass quality and other pertinent performance data of the stocker cattle.
The droughts experienced during the project period affected data collection and so results were inconclusive. Nevertheless, crabgrass did play a positive role in the final growing stages of heavy yearlings before shipment to the stockyard.