Cowbytes helps producers make optimum use of their home-grown feeds, while only purchasing the necessary volume of supplementary feeds and taking advantage of lower cost alternative feeds or by-products.
“By adjusting their feeding programs, producers can often reduce feed costs while meeting production targets and even boosting productivity and profitability” says Patrick Ramsey, business development specialist – beef, with ARD. “Most producers can find $1,000 in feed savings using this program to prevent over or under feeding and to scout for cheaper alternative feeds, while still getting the performance they desire.”
The Cowbytes program allows producers to select the type of cattle they want to feed and the productivity levels they want to achieve based on body weight, average daily gain in growing cattle, body condition score, stage of gestation or milk production level in cows. Producers can also adjust for climatic conditions such as temperature, wind speed, and mud in pens as well as for hide thickness and summer or winter hair coat depth.
The program comes with a feed table based on the average values of Alberta feeds. “Producers can modify the nutrient content of the feeds listed on the table based on their own feed test results,” says Barry Yaremcio, beef/forage specialist with ARD. “This allows producers to balance their feed rations for energy, protein, major minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, trace minerals such as copper, zinc, manganese and selenium and vitamin A and E. The program also allows producers to enter a water analysis which may affect a feeding program especially in salt and mineral intake.”
“Once the ration is balanced producers can create a feed mix, such as a grain mix, or grain/silage/supplement mix, or mineral/salt/vitamin mix and create tailor-made recipes for adjusting the mix levels to increase growth of the cattle,” says Yaremcio. Custom feeding and feed inventory reports can also be generated. These features help producers to make decisions about purchasing feed in advance or selling animals to match feed inventory with cattle requirements.
One of the new features of Cowbytes Version 5 is a yardage calculator. This allows producers to enter their facility, equipment and operating costs (such as taxes, insurance, veterinary services, utilities, repairs, fuel, labour), along with the number of cattle and the number of days on feed to determine the yardage costs per head per day. This calculation can be especially important if producers are over-wintering someone else’s cattle on a custom rate (dollars per head, per day) basis as producers often underestimate their yardage costs.
The Cowbytes’ program manual has also been expanded to include a “beef ration rules of thumb” section and a primer on cattle nutrition.
Producers will soon be able to download the demo copy of Cowbytes or purchase it through ARD’s website (www.agriculture.alberta.ca). To arrange a demonstration of the software for your group, contact one of ARDs beef or forage specialists by calling 310-FARM toll-free.
To recieve a copy adapted specifically to organics, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Contact:
Patrick Ramsey,
Business Development Specialist – Beef
High River
403-652-8303
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