We purchased registered bred Angus cows from Southwest Iowa where they were grazing on brome pastures. Upon their arrival, in Southwest Missouri, we put the cows on a straight fescue pasture and we fed them a free choice mineral with Tasco®.
It takes normally one to two years to cattle to adapt to fescue. We were expecting the cows to fall apart like most cattle new to fescue pasture but they did not fall apart. The cows do not spend time in the shade or in the ponds until the temperature hits 100 degrees. Normally, even native fescue cows are in the shade and/or the ponds as soon as it gets into the 90’s.
My partners and I are registered franchise breeders. Tasco® will really help us to use non-fescue adapted Iowa animals immediately in our herds.
John Massa, Southwest Missouri Producer
Lamar, Missouri
PREGNENCY RATES & FESCUE
I fed Fescue Buster mineral with Tasco® from Main Street Feeds in Monet Missouri to my cattle this summer. All of my pastures are endophyte-infected fescue with few legumes. It rained during the spring and early summer so there was plenty of fescue. The rain stopped in July and it turned hot and humid for 90 days. My cows got thin and I thought I had a train wreck.
I recently pregnancy checked the cows and had great results. There were only six open cows out of 169 total cows (96.4% pregnant). All of the 23 first calf heifers were pregnant. I also had 37 virgin heifers and 35 of them were bred.
My vet was impressed since the area’s pregnancy rates were lower than normal this year. The vet told me I should have 77% of the cows (130 of 169 cows) calve in the first 30 days of calving season.
I’m pretty impressed with Tasco®. I plan on feeding Tasco® in Fescue Buster mineral from March 15 thru September 15 next year. Tasco®is too inexpensive not to have it in my mineral for this amount of time.
ADAPTATION TO FESCUE
PREGNENCY RATES & FESCUE
