Better beginnings

From a mismatched group of sale barn calves to a pen of young, developing heifers to a set of steers bound for the feedlot, there’s no consistency in the cattle on Matt Poindexter’s farm in Archie, Mo.

That’s why consistency in his feed is so important.

“We have a wide variety of cattle flowing through the farm, so I need one consistent product I can use with all of them,” Poindexter said. “When you get inconsistency in the feed ration, you can mess up the calf’s gut, and then you have to start over. Any time they’re off feed, it costs you money. If you give them a consistent ration, then those calves never back up.”

The fourth-generation livestock producer finally found the feed he’d been looking for early last spring, when MFA Livestock Sales Manager Frank Harris and Ruminant Nutritionist Marc Epp teamed up to create the “Walker Developer Ration” to meet the needs of varied groups of calves on Poindexter’s farm.

Manufactured at MFA’s feed mill in Walker, Mo., the ration is formulated with 16% protein, a generous amount of energy along with Ricochet mineral and MFA Shield Technology. The feed is designed to pair well with the high-quality forages produced on the farm by Poindexter and his brother, David.

“It has all-natural protein—there’s no urea added to it—which does the best job in extracting all the energy and protein out of the available forages,” Epp said. “This ration is also nice and concentrated, which means that if you have lower intakes, you’re able to feed less of it and still have a nice bang for your buck.”

Each year, Poindexter will feed some 400 to 500 head of cattle, all coming to his farm from different backgrounds with varying sets of challenges. The length of time they stay in his care depends on the group, he explained.

“Some of them we have for two to three weeks because we’re just getting them cleaned up and worked, and then they’re going on to a feedlot somewhere,” he said. “Some of them will run here for 100 to 120 days. Some of the heifers we’ll have for six months, eight months. Every pen’s different.”

 Poindexter said his approach to livestock production was inspired by his parents, veterinary technicians who often worked with feedlots to “straighten out” high-risk calves.

“We ran mama cows and horses when I was growing up, but we got addicted to the challenges of taking a set of calves that haven’t been managed well and in 60 days get them healthy and looking good,” Poindexter said. “It’s always interested me, and it’s a fun challenge. Frustrating at times, yes, but it keeps you thinking.”

Before he began exclusively using the Walker Developer feed, Poindexter had been blending his own commodities and forages to create a total mixed ration (TMR) for whatever combination of calves he was feeding at the time. But the disparity of ingredients, expense of the equipment and labor to make the feed motivated him to seek a better solution.

“Our forage quality is up there—17% to 20% protein—so we don’t really need your basic branded feed. That’s how I started working with Frank,” Poindexter said. “We were looking for a way to feed a commercially available feed that had a reliable source and would keep me from having to start the feed wagons and the skid steers. Needing $300,000 worth of equipment to feed a TMR was getting a little extreme. The challenge became, ‘Can we take a pelleted feed or a commodity blend and match or beat the feed wagon?’”

The answer, he concluded, is “yes.”

“We’ve had 10 or 11 sets of calves through here on the MFA feed, and we’re actually achieving a little cheaper cost of gain than using the mixer wagon—without the expense and labor of the mixer wagon,” Poindexter said. “I’ve yet to have a set of calves where I’ve had to feed less because their gut health is off. They just always go forward.”

A big part of those health benefits can be attributed to the inclusion of Shield Technology in the ration, Epp said. Shield is an all-natural additive that helps improve the animal’s immune system, protect against oxidative stress, and increase feed efficiency, daily gain, rumen function, breedback and overall performance. The proprietary blend of essential oils, probiotics, carbohydrates and other research-tuned ingredients in Shield is specifically designed to improve gut health by promoting beneficial bacteria needed for ruminant digestion.

“High-risk cattle come in with an incredible amount of stress. Likely they’re not going to be weaned, they’re in a new environment and they may have been shipped long distances,” Epp said. “Eating a high-quality feed on the front end is vitally important for the health of those calves, short-term as well as long-term.”

Since introducing the Walker Developer Ration on his farm, Poindexter said he sees calves going straight from the trailer to the feed bunk, time after time, no matter what their background or health situation. Death loss has dropped nearly to zero, and gains are exceeding expectations.  

“When you’re dealing with high-risk cattle, most people are giving an antibiotic on arrival. So that’s killing all the germs and microbes in their body—good and bad—for seven to 10 days,” Poindexter said. “With the Walker Developer, the calves are going straight to the feed, which means we’re introducing probiotics to keep their gut working. That’s why we’re seeing the calves never back up on feed. Within three to five days, we have them eating 4 to 5 pounds per head, per day. It’s been phenomenal.”

With the national beef cow herd at a 63-year low, rebuilding those numbers is a priority for the industry. A key component of that effort is heifer retention, which was a primary consideration in the creation of the Walker Developer Ration, Epp said. Developing heifers into breeding stock takes optimum level of vitamins and minerals to ensure proper reproductive function along with the right amount of protein and energy for balanced growth, he explained.

“It’s critical to have the ration set up correctly to make sure they’re going stay on the right track,” Epp said. “You need the right amount of protein, but you don’t want to grow them too fast. We need to balance their nutrition so that they’re not gaining too much, but they’re gaining enough to hit the right weight at the right time for breeding.”

Working with MFA on the conception and creation of the Walker Developer feed has been a rewarding experience, said Poindexter, crediting Harris and Epp for having the vision to “think outside the box” to serve the needs of his unique operation.

“For what we do and the variety of calves that we mess with, there’s no box that we fit in, so we can’t use a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all ration,” Poindexter said. “Luckily, Frank puts up with our questions and unconventional thinking. And it’s worked for both of us to get better at what we’re doing.”

“On my side of things, it’s hard to find a producer like Matt who will trust you the way he’s trusted me and be willing to bounce ideas off of,” Harris added. “The questions he has are not only a challenge to me, but a challenge in the industry. I enjoy helping him find the solutions to those challenges.”

Though this particular ration was created with Poindexter’s farm in mind, Harris said its formula can be replicated at any of MFA’s grind-and-mix or pellet mills.

“The reason why we created the Walker Developer the way we did is because if we found out it worked here, any of our mills within the state can make it,” he said. “It’s designed to be competitive in terms of cost of gain to make sure a producer’s bottom line is staying where it needs to be—or even better than it needs to be.”

When it comes to the future, that bottom line is top of mind for Poindexter, who, with his wife, Cari, is raising the fifth generation on their family farm—daughters, Hailey, 11, and Hannah, 7, and son, Hayden, 2. Hailey is already helping move and work calves, Poindexter said, and Hannah isn’t far behind.

“If they have interest, my goal is to have the operation going well enough to expand and involve them, whether it be on this place or somewhere else,” Poindexter said. “That’s very important to me. I don’t know exactly how the farm will evolve, but with the feed we’re getting, the hay we’re producing and the grasses we’re growing, we’ve got plenty of options.”

For more information on feeding programs to fit your operation, visit with your local MFA solutions provider.    

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