Cattle

Hands down one of the best investments we make every year is using Sweet Pro Mineral. Being a low input ranch in north central Wyoming feeding little to no hay, our cattle make our living by being able to productively graze year around off of diverse forages. Sweet Pro mineral helps by not only maximize the nutritional value of those forages but also maximizing our cows profitability by increasing their overall health, their calves health, & unborn calves health. Added benefits we have seen is the lack of sickness during calving season (scours, pneumonia), also the ability for the cows to naturally synchronize their breeding cycles together helping us go from a 90 day calving period to a 60 day calving period. This has been one of the easiest ways for us to help return more to our bottom line, by helping keep our cattle healthier, we get females in full production for 3-4 more years, more live calves come shipping time.

Just thought I would drop you an email and let you know some of our results over the course of the winter. We fed the backgrounder tubs to about 1250 head of yearlings, and Redmond salt and conditioner to the other 1250 head of yearling on our place. On a bad year we suffer from about 120 cases of coccidiosis in our yearlings. This year we only doctored one (and we are not even sure if he was actually sick with it or not). Although we still had some foot rot out of one truckload of cattle that came in our sickness was next to nothing this year, which was good considering how bad of a winter we had. The product really works. Thanks. Just a little side note here about the gains we have had with our yearlings on SweetPro and Redmond products. Over the last week we have sold about 600 head of yearlings in two bunches. They were started out on the backgrounder tub and then switched to FiberMate 18’s part way through the summer. They ate about .75 lbs per day of the tubs and were space fed as well. We had Redmond salt on the side and they were just on summer rangeland and we still gained 2.99lbs on one bunch and 3.02 lbs per day on the other. These particular cattle didn’t have fly control and no growth hormones either.

Last fall we fence-line weaned 285 calves on our hay meadows and SweetPro’s KafKandi. They immediately took to the Kaf Kandi and consumption was right where it was supposed to be. The calves seemed to hold good body condition, and health was excellent with having to treat just one in 60 days. As with anything new, we were a bit skeptical of weaning the calves on the tubs for the first time. We were very impressed with the results and really appreciate the convenience of the tubs.

Preg tested our yearling heifers today–we had only put the bulls in for 28 days, so we expected a lot of opens. Not so much–197/230 to calve in 28 days–gonna be a BUSY March in the calving barn! We use SweetPro year round on all our cattle, and will never use anything else, its improved so many things about our herd, molasses barrels just don’t even compare.

Love our ARROWQUIP CHUTE — fits all sizes of animals, quiet, easy on the workers and the cattle.

We went from the worst year ever, to the best year we’d ever had. With the heat and dryness, we just couldn’t get the cows to cycle. We went from conception rates of 65-70% to 97% bred in a single year. The only thing we changed in our program was adding SweetPro blocks. It really helps them utilize their feed. Instead of 25 pounds of grain, we are seeing the same results with only 10 pounds per bull. We don’t want them big, but want to see them fit and well-muscled. By looking at bull’s manure, we can tell if they are eating SweetPro or not by how well the grain is broken down – particularly with corn, they just seem to be able to utilize it better. We truly believe that using SweetPro products has been a key factor in making our bulls reach their maximum potential. We use SweetPro 16s every day on the ranch and Fresh Start every day on the road.

We can certainly attest to herd health benefits of our products to reduce the need for antibiotics. We sent 360 calves raised on SweetPro, whose mothers were also raised on SweetPro (and at this point probably generations past that with 10 yrs of feeding SweetPro), and so far, the feedlot has had to doctor only 2 calves with antibiotics, and those two only required one dose each.

Since we started using Sweet Pro our cows have held their condition through the winter. We have also improved in our weaning weight 20-30 pounds. We also use Sweet Pro Products with our 45 head of camp horses and have been very impressed with the improvement in being able to maintain a good condition; especially with our older horses.

Our heifers have been a very interesting study in fetal programming. We have 67 heifers that were born here from mother cows that were on SweetPro for their entire breeding and gestation period. We have 20 heifers that are from our other ranch that’s Reno’s brother runs, and those heifers’ mothers were only on SweetPro during the harsh winter months in the last trimester of gestation. Out of our current total of 29 calved out heifers, only THREE are from the other ranch’s bunch, the remaining 26 that have calved are from our bunch here, (the remaining herd of heifers from the other place is being calved out by my niece/nephew, and they have 11) meaning, our heifers bred up on the first cycle at a rate that is over twice as fast than the other ranch’s heifers. Its a good comparison b/c the mother cow and bull genetics are the same in both herds, and the heifers from both places were all consolidated as yearlings into one pasture for breeding last season, so they all grazed the same range, serviced by the same bulls. Conception rate for our group of heifers was significantly higher at preg testing as well.