• Effects of Fire & Drought
• Questions to Ask
• Several Options
• Water Considerations
• Supplementing Cattle
• Supplement Options
• General Supplement
  Recommendations
• Reducing Nutrient
  Requirements
• Feeding Management Options
• Ammoniated Straw
• Potential Problems
• Sources and Credits
• Interactive Exercises

Beef Cattle Management - Potential Problems

• The use of salt to limit supplement intake may increase water intake 50 to 75 percent. Water must not be limited in any way or salt toxicity may result.

• Over consumption of urea-containing supplements by cattle on forage-scarce ranges may result in ammonia toxicity. Generally, cattle performance on urea-type supplements can be lower than expected when energy or forage is in short supply.

• Hay cut under moisture stressed conditions, especially grain type hays, may contain high levels of nitrate. It is recommended to test for nitrate before feeding such hays, especially before feeding large amounts. Be sure to take a good representative sample for analysis.

• Prussic acid or cyanide poisoning can also be a problem in grazing drought-stunted plants such as sorghum, sorghum hybrids and sudan grass. If forage for hay is allowed to sun cure thoroughly for three to five days, bleaching out any bright green color, prussic acid problems should be lessened.

• Cattle grazing short pasture are more likely to consume poisonous plants. Poisonous plants may grow faster after wildfire.

• Infrequent feeding (from alternate day to once per week feeding) of protein supplements (less than 30 percent crude protein) like oil-seed meal cubes, has been recommended to save labor. The practice is still good for high protein supplements but is not to be used for grain type supplements. High energy supplements (grain, breeder cubes, etc.) should be fed daily, especially where > .5 percent of body weight may be fed daily. High-energy acid-producing feeds tend to decrease rumen pH and fiber digestion and alternate day feeding of large amounts magnifies the decrease in rumen pH. Un-adapted cows should be started on grain feeding slowly or the problems of acidosis, founder and even death may result.

• Rumen impaction may result where cattle receive inadequate protein (less than 7% to 8% CP in total diet) and too much of a low quality/high fiber forage such as drought affected pasture or wheat straw only. Lack of adequate water will aggravate the impaction problem.

• Hardware disease. Hay harvested from vacant city lots, roadsides etc., may contain nails, wire or foreign objects which can pierce the rumen wall resulting in death of the animal. Close observation of feeds and the use of magnets in grinder/mixers can help to reduce the potential consumption of problem materials by animals.