1. Al Ulmer, LaMoure County Agent
Karl Hoppe, CREC Livestock
Specialist

2.  LaMoure County has
12 feedlots
 Approximately
40,000 head capacity
 Approximately 15,800
cow/calf pairs
 Two dealers in county
selling mix wagons
 Approximately 105
producers with mix
wagons

3.  Use a lot of low quality feeds
• Corn stover
• Prairie hays
• Straw
A lot of co-products available in the area
(within 100 miles)
• Spuds
• Corn syrup
• DDGs and WDGs

4.  Contacted
by producers about feed wagons
wondering if they were getting good mixes
• Concern's were mixing antibiotics, minerals and
vitamins and other feed additives
 Al
and Karl do a lot of on farm beef trouble
shooting

5.  Feed costs have dramatically increased
 Obtaining maximum feed conversion in to
cattle weight is a necessity
 Improving feed efficiency involves using
feeds in right combinations
 Totally mixed rations improve
fermentation efficiencies

6.  Education was needed to guide feed lot
operators and provide the tools needed to
make improvements in their operations
 Producers need to reduce the cost of inputs
in their operations and become more
efficient particularly in the trends and
marketing of calves

7.  Making a Total Mixed Ration (TMR)
requires adequate mixing
 Program was designed to evaluate on farm
mixing performance
 Program benchmarks mixing performance
and then developing solutions to improve
mixing
 Consequently animal performance should
improve

8. A “hands on” on-farm mixing evaluation
 Follow up farm visits with a written
evaluation to include:
• feed sample nutritional reports
• coefficients of variation (CV) report
• letter with suggestions on how to fine tune their
feed mixing operation

9.  One on one feedlot visits with “hands on”
mixing evaluation
 Used edible markers
• Candy corn
• Good and Plenty

10.  Not all candies work well
• Looked at M&M couldn’t afford them
 Used Candy Corn and Good & Plenty (G&P)
 Goal was to have 1 piece of candy for every 1
pound of dry feed or 2000 pieces of candy (5
pounds) into two tons of 50% moisture feed
 Add at 2.5 to 5 pounds per ton of mix
• Candy corn = 220 pieces/pound
• Good and Plenty = 390 pieces/pound

11.  Wet feeds coated the candy making it harder to
find (G&P) candy corn was much easier to find

12.  With dry feeds candy was much easier to find

13.  Had producer loaded feed wagon in their
normal fashion
 Added candy into feed wagon with feed
mix
 Mixed feed for their normal mixing time

14.  Set 3 dish pans in bunk line
• One at the beginning
• One in the middle
• One at the end
 Collected the pans (before the calves got to
them)
 Sorted and counted markers
 Evaluated mix wagon effectiveness of uniform
mixing of feed ration
 Then suggest changes to make mix wagon to
get a better uniform feed mix

15.  Measured and calculated co-efficient of
variation
• Candy
• Dry Matter
• Crude Protein
• ADF (Acid Detergent Fiber)
• Calcium
• Phosphorous
• Sample Weights

16. Candy Dry matter Crude Protein
Coefficient of variation Coefficient of variation Coefficient of variation
observations observations observations
First 1/3 of bunk 4 57.77 11.19
Second 1/3 of bunk 1 57.38 11.91
Last 1/3 of bunk 4 56.62 13.89
Standard Deviation 1.732 dev 0.585 dev 1.398
mean (Average) 3.00 mean 57.26 mean 12.33
Coefficient of Variation 57.74 CV 1.02 CV 11.34
CV=DEV/Mean*100 CV=DEV/Mean*100 CV=DEV/Mean*100
Goal 10% Goal 10% Goal 10%
Best 5% Best 5% Best 5%
very accurate 1% very accurate 1% very accurate 1%

17.  The wide range of candies counted at the
beginning, middle and end of the feed bunk
indicate improvements can be made in mixing
 There is always a need to be vigilant in doing
a good job of feed mixing
 Upon review of the nutritional components of
the ration, mixing appears to be adequate (or
not for those not meeting the mixing goal) for
• Crude protein ADF, Calcium and Phosphorous

18.  Mixing Suggestions:
• increase mixing time
• blend ingredients of
smaller quantities (like
minerals) with other dry
feeds and mix
thoroughly before
adding hays and/or
silages

19.  Mixing Suggestions:
• repair damaged or worn parts in the mixer
• don’t over fill the feed mixer, it does the best job when filled no
fuller than 85% of capacity

20.  Candy was a great way to get the
producers interest in the project
 Candies are a great method to visually see
that mixing can always be improved
 Reviewing the chemical analysis of the
ration, is a good way to determine if they
were doing a good job of mixing both the
forage based and grain based rations

21.  We got operators to:
• look at their feeding operations
• find ways to reduce costs
• better utilize their resources

22.  Created awareness of how a total mix
ration of conventional & alternative feed
sources and management changes can
improve feedlot animal performance
 Operators learned how better feed mixing
can positively affect their operation

23.  Relationshipbuilding, trouble
shooting, opportunity to discuss other
production issues, and having producers
see the value of NDSU extension