FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A high-energy diet that includes higher amounts of dry soybean hulls was the most economical choice for Arkansas beef producers who want to “finish,” or bring their weaned cattle up to market weight, on the farm.

FINISHING ON THE FARM — Feeder steers at the Southwest Research and Extension Center were raised on varying diets as part of a cattle finishing study. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

An Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station study conducted at the Southwest Research and Extension Center in Hope showed that a high-byproducts diet, which uses a material that may otherwise be wasted, also provided the best meat quality among three diets tested.

“Cattle producers are looking for alternative methods to finish their cattle and successfully diversify their operations through direct marketing of their products to consumers,” said Daniel Rivera, associate professor of animal science and director of the Southwest Research and Extension Center for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The experiment station is the research arm of the Division of Agriculture.

Rivera said the research team wanted to know the feasibility of keeping “feeder” cattle on the pasture with a high-energy supplement to achieve results comparable to those at feedlots. In the process, they would calculate the cost and measure the impact of different diets. Feeder cattle are weaned calves that have reached a weight between 600 to 800 pounds.

The study stems from supply chain setbacks for meat supply during the COVID-19 pandemic and passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act, which opened alternative markets for cattle producers. The research was funded in part by a grant from the Arkansas Beef Council.

“Arkansas is not typically a cattle finishing state,” Rivera said. “We don't have that infrastructure here like they do out West and in the Midwest. A lot of local producers had an interest in finishing cattle, but they didn't have the background or the knowledge base to do it correctly.”

Rivera said the study showed that cattle can be fed on pasture and finished in a similar amount of time as cattle fed at a feedlot, with no negative effect on quality.

The study took place in 2023 and evaluated the effects of three diets on weight-gain performance, carcass quality and meat characteristics of 63 locally sourced crossbred feeder steers, which are young males that have been castrated.

The feeder steers weighed on average 796 pounds at the start of the study. They were divided by body weight, fed assigned diets for 161 days and weighed every 28 days before being shipped to a commercial slaughter facility in Arkansas City, Kansas. Rivera said the facility was used to accommodate the higher number of cows than could be processed at a local facility in a timely manner. The cost of transportation to the facility in Kansas was not accounted for in the study because it was irrelevant to the scenario.

Diets tested

The three diets tested included:

Conventional feedlot finishing diet with roughage: 10.9 percent bermudagrass hay, 56.2 percent cracked corn, 30 percent corn gluten feed and 2.9 percent mineral mix.
High-starch supplement fed at 2 to 2.25 percent of body weight, with free access to bermudagrass pasture: 50 percent cracked corn, about 21.6 percent corn gluten feed, 24.5 percent dried distiller’s grains with solubles, 2.9 percent mineral mix and 1 percent limestone for calcium.
High-byproduct supplement fed at 2 to 2.25 percent of body weight with free access to bermudagrass pasture: 14.8 percent cracked corn, 21.9 percent corn gluten food, 21.9 percent dried distiller’s grains with solubles, 38 percent dry soybean hulls, 2.9 percent mineral mix, and 0.5 percent limestone.

The hull of a dry mature soybean contains about 85 percent carbohydrates and 9 percent protein.

“The reason we chose to test the byproduct diet is because it is more user-friendly,” Rivera said. “Most producers wouldn't run the risk of acidosis or some of the problems that you might see with a high-starch diet that is found in a lot of feedlot type diets.”

Acidosis is when the cow’s digestive system pH is lower than normal and can lead to a lack of appetite, increased breathing and sometimes death.

More ‘Choice’ quality with high-byproduct diet

Rivera said the results of all three diets were statistically similar, with the average weight increasing from about 800 pounds to 1,200 pounds throughout the study. However, the high- byproduct diet offered the best economic return whether the calf was purchased outright or born on the farm.

The percentage of beef that was “USDA Choice” quality grade or higher was 80 percent with the high-byproduct diet, 66 percent with the conventional feedlot diet, and 62 percent on the high-starch supplement diet. “Choice” is second to “Prime” in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s beef quality grading system, which is a measure of palatability of beef, or eating quality. Quality grades are a combination of marbling, which is the fine, small flecks of fat in the steak and maturity, which is how old cattle are at the point of harvest.

“Preliminary performance data shows that we were able to indeed produce a high-quality product,” Rivera said. “They were pretty similar in terms of their body weight and quality.”

The high-starch diet offered the lowest carcass value per head at about $1,958. The conventional feedlot diet provided the second-highest value at $2,021.85 per head, and the high-byproduct diet offered the highest carcass value per head at $2,065.89.

Cost to finish on the farm

Rivera said the cost of increasing the weight of a weaned calf from about 750-800 pounds to a finished weight of about 1,200 pounds was approximately $550 per head for all three treatments.

“If you’re a producer and you’re wanting to start this endeavor, this gives you a blueprint that shows it’s going to cost roughly $500 to $600 per head to get from point A to point B,” Rivera said.

CATTLE STUDY — Michelle Johnson, animal science graduate research assistant at the University of Arkansas, led a study at the Southwest Research and Extension Center testing varying diets on finishing cattle. (Courtesy photo)

Consumer preferences

Michelle Johnson, animal science graduate research assistant at the University of Arkansas, was the lead author of the study. She defended her master’s thesis in July with results from the study, offering evaluations from trained taste panelists who noted there were no sensory characteristic differences in the beef from the three different diets.

Kelly Vierck, assistant professor of animal science, explained that despite being fed a high-byproduct diet or starch supplementation, the cattle fed those treatments met or exceeded the standards set by conventionally fed cattle with no detriment to important beef quality traits, such as tenderness, juiciness, or flavor.

Johnson said beef from the pastured groups, which included the high by-product and high starch diets, had better color stability. Research has shown that while color doesn’t correlate with flavor, consumers prefer bright red color, and color stability indicates longer shelf life, Johnson noted.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.