Extended Grazing and Byproduct Diets in Beef Growing Finishing Systems

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