Extended Grazing and Byproduct Diets in Beef Growing Finishing Systems

Summary Two experiments evaluated methods of reducing costs of finished beef. The first experiment, used lambs as a model for cattle. A dry rolled corn diet served as a control and two byproduct diets: 1) corn gluten feed; or 2) gluten feed plus wheat midds, were supplemented with three levels of tallow. Byproduct diets gave feed efficiencies nearly equal to corn and efficiencies increased with tallow supplementation . In the second experiment, 128 steers were used in grazing systems including smooth brome, warm-season grasses, oats and cornstalks and finished on corn or byproduct diets. High forage gains reduced costs and slaughter breakevens.