Auger bucket instead of diet feeder?
- Thread starter marco
- Start date
headcase
Very Senior Member
I use a Ritchie to put out barley
Carrigogunnell
Well-Known Member
We use one on a skidsteer. The big advantage is cost and time. The big disadvantage is no weighing and no TMR.
massey 6480
Well-Known Member
Had an auger bucket here at home last year worked well . Certainly saved the man a lot of hardship handling bucket`s . But have gone down the diet feeder route for this year . Time will tell if it was the right decision . Certainly saving time using the feeder over the bucket as bucket feeding was being done morning and evening . Cattle seem more content in the shed with the tmr diet . Ended up using the bucket this summer for meal feeding at grass filling trough`s which worked really well albeit accuracy of volume would be questionable with them .
scoffcruddle
Well-Known Member
I've an auger bucket but prefer using the mixer,they eat up better with the mixer feed.
Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
What loader do you have @marco?
Do you really need to feed meal, can beef prices support it? At under €4 I cant see how meal is viable
muckymanor
Well-Known Member
I wasn't over happy with bullock kill out off grass alone a few weeks ago. I was much happier with the kill out off grass in June.
The way I looked at it was that there's 18c in the difference between an R= and a U =. Full brothers of my R= this year were U= this time last year.
On a 350kg Carcass that's €63. 3kg of meal per day for the last 60 days of feeding would have cost 84c per day or €50.40. It may not have brought them all the way up to last year's grades, but it would almost certainly have added 30kg to 40kg live weight which with them being fully grown animals would have transferred almost directly into carcass weight. So 30kg more at €3.77/kg works out at almost €114 more. So, in reality, feeding €50 odd of meal along with the best grass that I did feed them, could have transferred into an extra €177 per bullock or a gain of over €125 per animal.
Now, I know that this won't work for all types of animals. But it will certainly work for the type of beef bred suckler animals that I am working with. I learned an expensive lesson by not spending money on meal, especially when I have the equipment to feed it.
jay gatsby
Well-Known Member
Great to see the figures but I think you're being optimistic that 50 quid of meal is going to add 8.5% of an animal's dead weight and 2 grades to its conformation.
muckymanor
Well-Known Member
Maybe. But even 100 euro worth of meal fed would still leave money in my pocket
jay gatsby
Well-Known Member
Yep, it's definitely a good insurance to getting a decent finish on stock. Our ground at home always seems to leave stock shy of flesh without a shake of meal to get them over the line
6600
Well-Known Member
With green barley prices at €140 it's surely viable to feed it. Grass and silage are not free either.
Farmerbigballs
Well-Known Member
High energy ration delivered here today still €250 a tonne.
When will this years barley come into play?
When will this years barley come into play?
muckymanor
Well-Known Member
190 a ton here from the merchant. Its quite a viable feed for us at that price. Can't get a ration at 250 as quoted above but I expect it will drop over the coming weeks
Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
thats a headline figure, most lads would want a 10 over their regular price, im €10 to haul, €13 to roll, balance with protein and a bit of finance puts lads @€190 been fed out. Im not saying its expensive, its just that can beef under €4 wear it, im not sure, or either are allot of merchants
6600
Well-Known Member
True