Feeding, Fueling, and Building Show Stock from the Inside Out- Rob Cooper

If you’ve ever felt like you’re just guessing when it comes to feeding your animals… this episode is for you.

In this conversation, I sit down with Rob Cooper, a PhD-level ruminant nutritionist with over 20 years of experience developing feeding programs for large-scale cattle operations, to break down what actually matters when it comes to feed, supplements, and performance.

We dive into the fundamentals of nutrition—energy, protein, and what’s really happening inside the rumen—and then connect it directly to what you’re seeing in the barn. From analyzing your animals, to adjusting feed, to understanding why some lambs handle soft while others stay hard, this episode is built to give you a clearer framework instead of more confusion.

We also get into:

•  How feeding changes when you introduce exercise (treadmill, walking, etc.) 
•  The truth about supplements—and what’s actually worth your money 
•  Why consistency in feeding matters more than most people realize 
•  The biggest mistakes beginners make (and how to avoid them) 
•  Practical strategies for lambs, steers, and breeding heifers 

One of the biggest takeaways: you can’t just throw more feed at an animal and expect results. Understanding what to change and why is what separates average programs from great ones. 

If you’re serious about improving your feeding program—or just want to stop second-guessing yourself every time you walk into the barn—this is a must-listen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Cheat Codes, where we're learning the game of show stock together and talking with the people who already know how to win. Today's episode is one I've personally been looking forward to because honestly, feeding has been one of the biggest areas where I feel like I'm guessing more than I should be. We've got Rob Cooper with Cooper Specialty Feeds on today. Rob has a master's and PhD in ruminant nutrition and has spent over 20 years developing feed programs for large-scale cattle operations. And what I want to do today is break down nutrition into something that actually makes sense in the barn. What matters, what doesn't, and how feeding ties into things like exercise programs that a lot of us are starting to implement. Rob, appreciate you coming on. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, appreciate being here. Look forward to the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hey, before we get into the weeds, let's just get a little background. How'd you get into the feed nutrition and what's led you to what you're doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, so like your your introduction stated, I I am a ruminant nutritionist. If you don't know what that is, that's uh that's a nutrition for ruminants, which is kind of important. We can get into it a little bit later. So in this discussion, cattle, sheep, and goats. I've been doing consulting primarily for feed yards, but also some cow calf, but primarily feed yards all across the Midwest United States for 20 plus years doing independent nutrition consulting for feed yards. Uh, you know, during that time period, uh, you know, me and my wife Jody, we as kids showed livestock. Then when our kids got old enough, uh, we had that desire to do that as well. And so we were very involved in the showing industry. But, you know, me being a nutritionist had especially interest in in the rations that we're feeding these animals and how we could change them through nutrition. You know, we probably fed every bagged product that you can name. You know, we probably fed it uh tinkering with those products. Uh, we also throughout the years put together some of my own formulations that we would have toll milled at other mills uh to varying levels of success. Uh the consistency is what we kept running into being being an issue. So, what what I guess what we did, right or wrong, uh about nine years ago, we decided, well, it let's just let's build a build a facility to mix some show feed. And so so we did that. We build a relatively small mill, at least when it comes to compared to commercial operations, because we don't make any commercial feed, everything is very dedicated uh along the show feed or specialty products. So we built that mill, uh, like I said, let's start about nine years ago, and uh here we are today.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

And you guys uh ship feed out of there?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, we sure do. We ship feed all over the United States from literally coast to coast, uh, you know, Florida, West Virginia to California, Utah, Montana. Obviously, the Lion's share is here in the Midwest, uh kind of the Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota. That that's kind of our core. But, you know, then we we can go all over the United States shipping feed. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Hey, I want to start with something that maybe will frame this for me a little bit. When I was growing up, I you know, I was into weight training and that kind of stuff and counting macros. And for those that don't know what macros are, so your your protein and your carbs and your fats, in the livestock world, is there any correlation between those two things? Because what I'm told is like with uh the sheep and the goats, especially, you know, everyone says we're we're making these little bodybuilders.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah, that that's true. That that's very true. I mean, we're I guess we don't think of it maybe as as counting macros, but you know, we're definitely formulating rations, whether it be the uh the the energy, uh the starch levels, uh, the protein levels, but basically we're thinking in terms of amino acids, the building block of proteins that we're getting to the animals. But once again, what makes it unique in the ruminants versus yourself or or people feeding pigs is we have that rumen that gets in the way. So what we feed the animal, that rumen ferments and turns it into something else, unless we feed something that bypasses the rumen. So you really got to think about that rumen, and you know, just because we feed, for example, if we feed normal lysine into to sheep, cattle, and goats, they don't necessarily absorb lysine because the the fermentation of the rumen is going to change that into something else. So if we want to get more lysine or methionine or or some amino acid to the animal directly, we have to do rumen protection, something that will escape that.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Interesting. And so you answered my question, but then you let into a little bit more, probably that's above my head. So can you explain, you know, what your next step is there with with trying to implement that part of it?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Oh, sure. This is what I really like talking about, but it probably bores a lot of people. So we are we are feeding when you're feeding these animals, we're we're thinking about two things. We're supporting rumen fermentation, because that has to happen. That's where they get most of their energy through rumen fermentation. So I'm not only feeding that microbial population that's fermenting, but then I'm also feeding the animal itself. So it's two lines of thinking of feeding the rumen and feeding the animal. And like I said, if we really want to start changing these animals, and we can talk about later, I think, uh, you know, how do we change one that's too fat or or too soft? If we can do that through some products, we got to make sure those products escape, get through the rumen unchanged.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Okay, okay. So what happens if we get energy wrong?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

If you get energy wrong, a couple things can happen. It in in cattle, sheep, and goats, if we if we throw too much energy at them all at once, and energy is primarily in the form of starch, right? Primarily in the form of corn. If we throw too much corn at them all at once, we can get what's called acidosis. They the fermentation is uh too fast and we produce too much acid and we can easily knock those off feed. I'm sure there's probably been a lot of people out there that thought they needed to gain more weight, so they threw a lot more feed at the animal only to find that we knocked them off feed because we went too fast. And uh again, that that's what makes that that room, and I'm gonna keep going back to it a little unique and how we have to adapt it and and know what we're doing in terms of energy and starch.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So, what happens if our protein is off?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, our protein is off. So if our protein is off, we will decrease performance in the in this case that you know weight gain. But we can also in some of these, especially in these uh sheep and goats, we can affect how they handle. How how are they soft to the touch or are they hard to the touch? We can really manipulate that through protein and more specifically protein sources.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Okay. So we've got a couple lambs that are, I'm gonna call them a little soft. That's what Philip told me. And we started feeding a high protein supplement just to those two lambs. And the idea is that that's gonna firm them back up.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, so so a a protein product, I hate to just use that word generically because it's it's which amino acids are being utilized in that protein product. We can we can feed a little bit of those products. For instance, let me just talk about the product that we make and we promote StarGlow. StarGlow is a product that that we fed a lot when we were showing livestock to a lot of success. It was a product, it's not a product that I came up with, but it was a product that we fed then, then it became so hard to get. But here just within the last year, we acquired uh the rights to manufacture that product from Bill Hill. So we make it there in-house and it's it's it's taken off really well. So Starglow is a product, it has a other things in it, but it's a it's a protein amino acid product, especially when we're talking about sheep and goats. But let's just talk sheep. It's a product that I don't know if we wouldn't jump into feeding programs right now, but it's a product that you know you can feed a little bit of it starting about now, and we'll we'll get some muscle bloom, some pop in those animals. Then as we get closer and closer to our target dates, and that condition is getting they're getting some condition on them, we'll feed more and more of that product, and you can actually you can just pretty much put them on hold in terms of fat deposition, uh, and you can even feed enough of it that we'll pull some fat off of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Okay. Yeah, that's kind of that's the product we're using. Uh we got it and picked it up from you guys when we were out there a week or so ago. And so it's it's it's one thing for you know, Philip came up and he went through the barn and he was like, Yep, this one, this one, this one, this one, and you know, we start making changes. Yep. And this is what we're gonna use. And and it can be overwhelming, but to understand the back end of it, you know, from your perspective and and know like, oh, that's how it's gonna work. Yep. Are most people like I should say, you know, your customers are probably pretty spot on if they're using your formulations, right? But are most people overdoing one side of the equation with the energy or the protein?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So let's talk about uh uh the different species that we're that that we make feed for. Let's start with cattle um on steers. I I think a mistake a lot of people feeding steers make in the masses, not everybody, some people do a fantastic job feeding steers. But on average, if you go to a lot of these county fairs, on average, most of these steers are underconditioned, they're they're not market ready, they're not they're not at 12 o'clock. And I think it's because people wait too long to start feeding on these steers. And then we get into the summer and try and play catch up, and that doesn't work uh when in the heat of the summer. So on these steers, we're our philosophy is we'd always rather be ahead than behind. So we're starting to put move these cattle up on feed a little earlier each year. You know, I'd say by the first year, we need to be pushing on these these market steers pretty hard in most cases, because we can always slow down later. It's easy to slow down, it's hard to catch them. Right. And when you slow down later, if you get these steers ready a month or two ahead of your target date, and then you slow down, good things happen. Uh, you start taking corn out of that ration and adding fiber as a dilution for energy, but they get sounder, they get hairier, they look better, their bellies are bigger, and a lot of good things happen. So on steers, I'd say be ahead, not behind. Opposite of that, uh, breeding heifers, I think a lot of times all these breeding heifers are too fat. And uh so so the key to is is never get them fat. Uh we want them big bellied and lots of volume and mass, and but we want them skinny-necked and you know, not have those pockets around the tailheads. And so we can try some things to get them skinny again, but the the best thing to do is just never get them fat in the first place. So that's just the opposite with the steers.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Can you speak to that a little bit? Why do we not want our heifers fat?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Well, I I think it can be uh unattractive from a phenom standpoint if we start getting that neck kind of crusty and fat, we want that skinny neck that just balances them out, makes them look very feminine. We want them big-bellied, big-bodied, you know, big hipped, but skinny necked. And uh so that's that's the primary reason. You know, you can get them so fat that it's hard to get them bred. That that's for certain. But you know, primarily what I'm talking about is just from an overall appearance standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Okay, and on the sheep side.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, on the sheep side. So the sheep side, so here's here here's the here's the secret sauce on sheep. You you need to get them fat, but they need to not feel fat. They need to be be fat because that makes them whiter and blows them apart, but they need to handle hard. So we do we do a lot of things in our feed to focus on that uh versus the kind of protein that we're feeding, the kind of fat that we're feeding. Uh we're trying to do things and the grains that we're feeding so we get a better handle on these animals. So we can make these sheep technically fat, but they don't feel that way. They feel hard. And so that's that's the thing. If you get them too fat, they're if you get them too fat, they're just gonna handle soft. And uh we definitely don't want that. We need the handle hard.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

We had just recently switched over, uh I sent you some pictures of our two steers, and you decided, uh, we should probably switch you over to a finisher ration. And I came from just one of the local mills was making us a blend of I'm gonna call it corn and protein. Um and it was funny. I talked to Jody back and forth, back and forth, and she's like, Well, why don't you just send Rob some pictures and he'll give you the the lowdown? And I told her what I was feeding, and she goes, Well, we like to feed ours feed. And I got a kick out of that because I can see what she means, you know, like a complete feed, what we were feeding probably wasn't considered, you know, it didn't have any of the filler or any of that stuff. But you landed on for our two steers, both, uh, the finisher ration. And what I'm struggling with is like when I look at those pictures, or you know, I walk in the barn and look at our animals. Like, what's the key one, two, three things that I should be looking for to analyze our animals and figure out, you know, what direction to go?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, so and and that's gonna that's gonna come with experience having fed several animals uh year after year. You kind of need you'll develop a sense for hey, it's uh it's April, it's the middle of April right now. This is where my steer needs to be in terms of weight condition. You know, weight's gonna vary a little bit by the frame size, but you you kind of can look at them and say, okay, this is the condition I need to be now in order to reach my target uh down the road. We can tell that a little bit through pictures, like like you and I did. If you if you can send me pictures, we can tell it's it nothing beats seeing them in person and feeling them, handling them, seeing what kind of condition they have on them. But yeah, that's kind of where we landed again with the philosophy that you know we I I think I maybe I told you, let's go ahead and let's push on these steers a little bit now. And if we have to slow down later, we'll we'll that's a good thing. And so that that's what we decided to do for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Maybe you can help me just because I'm dealing with this right now. But when we switched feeds, I mean, we were doing nine pounds in the morning, nine pounds at night. And these guys, I think I told you they're probably like twelve hundred pounds right now. And we separated them. When we moved, we separated them, and then they've backed off on their own. Well, when we switched feeds, I mean, they are eating this stuff up, they like it. So when do I start or do I start, you know, pushing on with what we're doing right now? Or hold steady? I mean, they're cleaning it up. I've I've not seen them lick their bowls clean like this since we had them together. But with the competition, they would they would clean it up every time.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yep. Yep. So how how many pounds total per day are they getting?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Uh they're each getting 18 pounds a day.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

18 pounds a day. So yeah, so uh we want to make them clean up every day, but uh we want to, you know, you can push them up to where just under what they'll clean up every day. And that's gonna be steer dependent. I mean 18 is is gonna be there for some animals, but you know, if if they would eat 20 pounds, like I said, I I would what I wanted to do with your steers in particular is I wanted to get some condition on them, make sure we can get there. And then once we once we're kind of getting close, then we'll start cutting that finisher back with a product like volumizer, a fill product, and uh get a lot of good things are gonna happen then. But uh I I'd say if they're if they're rapidly cleaning up, you know, you might just want to increase them a pound and then stay there for a week or two, then then try them another pound. Just just do it slow.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Well, I see a lot of information. You know, you can take it for what it's worth. I see a lot of information out there that says, you know, well, you need to be at a certain percentage of body weight. That's what they should be consuming. But to me, it depends on what you're feeding them. I don't know if that's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

It depends on what you're feeding them and how much they weigh. For instance, there there is no set percent of body weight. A 600 pounder can eat three three per plus percent of body weight, whereas uh a four fourteen hundred pounder can't even approach that level. That's a that's a guideline. That's a guideline for sure. It'll it'll get you close to be a percent of body weight, you know, two and a half percent of body weight or some number like that. But then you got to look at your animal and just how much they want to eat. Like again, we don't want them leaving feed every every day for sure, but we want them make sure they clean up but getting about as much as they can they can eat.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Okay. So when we're when we're looking at these, uh, what tells you if we need more energy or more muscle? Like what are the kind of indicators we should be looking for?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, so on the cattle side, you know, it energy, what energy is gonna do is gonna do more what more weight gain and more fat cover. And so on these steers, we're wanting to get them to some weight that matches their frame, but we're also we need to get them finished, you know, a smooth, even finish over that 12th rib. You know, that's where the judge is gonna handle. He's gonna handle along the loin edge and across that 12th rib, and that's where we want a smooth fat cover. So that's why we're handling these animals and and and making sure we get that. So more energy gets more fat there.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Okay. Um, same idea with the sheep and goats.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah, sheep and goats, yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Don't don't let me lump those together. If they don't go together, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Well, I'm gonna I'm probably gonna talk more about sheep than than goats. Uh, we have a lot of good goat feeders that feed our feed, and and we have fed some goats ourselves in the past, but uh we we have a lot more experience with the steers and heifers and and sheep. That's that's where our personal experience would be.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

So on the sheep side, it's it's it's a little bit more consistent. You know, we're we're basically we're gonna start with a base feed. Um and we we make several base feed bases based on people's uh uh preferences. But basically you're gonna start with base feed, and a lot of times on these sheep, uh, you know, uh it depends on the size of the animal, but they're gonna eat two to two to four pounds, but let's call it let's call it three pounds, uh you know, less when they're younger and smaller. But this time of year, typically for these lambs, it's primarily just base feed. Uh now we can change if you tell me, hey, my sheep's way behind, or we're I I can tell you which base feed we probably should be feeding. Uh, but we're probably talking just base feed. And then here in a month or so, you know, that's when we're starting adding a little bit of protein, we'll call it. That's the generic term, but star glow in this case. Yeah. Start adding some star glow, which will help manage condition on these lambs just a little bit. And then we'll just gradually, what that's doing, it's increasing the protein content of what we're feeding. And we just start start adding more and more starglow and less and less base feed as we approach our target. Sometimes as we get towards our target, I can tell you there's there's a lot of times when we get into August, September, we're we're feeding half starglow, half feed. And uh, you know, that just kind of puts those lamps on hold, get some, keeps them fresh, keep some hard handling, and we can hold one for a long time in a fresh condition by doing that.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So when you are doing that, are you backing the base feed down? Yes, yes, to get to get to that point.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yes, absolutely. Let's say we want to feed three pounds. Yep, so so for every for every pound of star glow I add, I'm taking that away from base feed, still three pounds total.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Okay, okay. So we've already talked about the lambs and and a little bit like that. Once we get into you know, basically my understanding is from now until our finish date, a lot of people are going to be doing the exercise, whether it's a treadmill or running them with dogs or a walker or anything like that. What happens in the body of the lamb when you start introducing that?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Well, so so obviously the more exercise we do, you're burning more calories. So, you know, if if you need to be gaining weight or gaining fat, you need to be feeding harder, providing more nutrients for them. Um so it depends on what you're what we're trying to accomplish. If if we have a lamb that's soft and fat, you know, we may want to exercise and not increase the feed, you know, to burn some of that fat off. If we have a lamb that we're just exercising to build muscle, but he also still needs some some condition, then we're probably gonna feed him a little harder. You know, if he'll eat three and a half pounds, we're gonna try and push him up there to do it. So it really matters on the lambs, on their genetics, and just what we need to do. I I guess the key is being able to look at those lambs and know what they need. And that comes with some experience, but it also, I mean, there's a lot of people out there from your person you purchase the lambs from, the breeder, perhaps myself, that we can help you determine that. Uh, if you don't know what your lamb needs, we can look at that lamb, say, hey, this is what it needs. Here's what we think we ought to.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

What do you think the biggest mistake is that uh people make when they start out with the exercise program?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah, probably initially, probably too exercising too much, and vice versa at the end, not exercising enough. You know, we we we liked before we started treadmilling, maybe this has changed a little bit. Uh it's been a couple years since we were treadmilling lambs, and we we used a walker and a treadmill. That's what we used. Uh we didn't have a have a track or a track dog, and I I can I know people are having good results with that, but we used a walker and a treadmill. We like to get those lambs up, and we really didn't start exercising real hard till they probably were weighing close to 100 pounds, somewhere around there. And then we would start exercising. We we used both the walker and the treadmill. We think walking before and after the treadmill, uh, especially if you're treadmilling backwards, which is what we did, is good. It's good exercises, it helps keep that spine where it needs to be. And then as we approach the end, you know, as we get, let's just say that Labor Day is our target date, so you know, stay fair, right? And you know, that that last month or so, those lambs would be on the walker, you know, at least two hours a day. And then and then treadmilled, you know, every couple of days. But you know, they they would be on the walker quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Because the conversation went there, I'm just gonna ask you, what's the uh what's the difference between the two, I'm gonna call them modes of action, or three if you count the the dog track thing? Like what's the difference between one versus the other versus the other?

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah, so walking is walking is just is just good, just like you and I walk in. It's good exercise, it's it it burns some calories, it keeps their appetite up, it teaches them to walk with their head, head up and erect, and it's just good for the animals. You're not gonna build a ton of muscle. You'll you'll keep muscle in shape, but you won't build a ton of muscle. Uh, to build muscle, we we like to talk about you know, sprinter muscles. You think about sprinters in Olympics versus long distance runners. You know, we want sprinter muscles in these lambs, right? And so, in order to get that, you need to treadmill hard as fast as you can possibly treadmill. Or that's why they're using the track dogs as well, because that's exercises short, short burst of intense. So you get those sprinter muscles.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

And I don't know if there's any truth to this. You know, like I say, I've been learning and seeing all kinds of stuff. But is there a is there an impact with the adrenaline part of that for the the track dog? We think so.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

That's what's been said. I I don't know that I can it's driving you right now the scientific reason why adrenaline would do that, but I think so. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get those short bursts of intensity, probably some adrenaline flowing through those lambs. And you can do the same thing without a tract. You can exercise these lamps, particularly, you know, if if you uh if you walk them down to the end of a your lane or end of a driveway and then take their halters off and just chase them back as fast as you know, they'll go to the barn. They'll go back to the barn every time and chase them as hard as you can chase them, whether it's on foot or with a four-wheeler or whatever, you can accomplish the same thing with without a track, but the track seems to be uh one step above that.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Okay. So if if I start a treadmill program tomorrow, what should I what should I be thinking about from a feeding standpoint right away?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

So again, it's gonna depend on your lamb, on where it's at. Are we trying to burn off a little fat or are we just trying to get them in shape, build some muscle? So what I would do is probably not, you're not gonna burn enough calories with the treadmill to really make a big difference. You know, it's just you know, it's a short burst. They build muscle, but they don't burn a lot of calories. I mean, it's it's really the hours on the walker that that'll burn calories. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Since you're here, we gotta ask you. Supplements are another area where there's so many options. Can you break down? I mean, the obvious ones are like a mineral or what do I want to say? Ones for hair growth and that kind of thing. But like when you're trying to put condition on a lamb or take it off, can you break down some of the mystery and stuff with supplements?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Absolutely, because we've all been there, right? We have uh in our feed room, we have uh 20 different buckets of stuff that you know we're trying to feed to you know make our make our animal more often, right? Yeah, do something. And uh, you know, we we read all these labels on these supplements, you know, you know, increases top line or or whatever you want to put on a label. I laugh at some of those because I I wonder how the ingredients that are in there would actually do that. So I I can tell you from our standpoint, so we we've been there, right? So what we tried to do, everything that we thought was real important for these animals to be fed every single day is in the feed. Uh we tried to simplify it that way. If this is important and I'm gonna do it every single day at this level, I'm just gonna put it in the feed and that simplifies things. Now we do have, as long as others, uh we do have a few supplements. We don't have near as many supplements as some because I won't I won't have a supplement unless I know exactly what it does and why it does it, and have some good evidence that it's actually doing that. So we do have some supplements uh that we can't put in the feed because we need to make sure we're matching different levels to different stages of growth where the feed wouldn't necessarily do that. So your primary ones, we talked about Starglow. That's that's the biggest one. That's the the biggest poundage because it could be up to on these lambs, half your feed at times. So StarGlow, a protein supplement. Uh we also have a very, very product that I I would not personally feed a single animal without called Shozone. It is it is it is a not only for hair growth, but for hide condition, the touch of the animals. It just works fantastic. There's some breeding aspects to it too on that side, but we won't go there right now. But showzone is a product. It's a very, it's there's nothing magic about it. It is just the most available sources of zinc and manganese and biotin that we can find. And we then we pelletize that with some flavor enhancers so we get really good consumption. It doesn't end up at the bottom of the feed pan, it gets consumed. And that product, you will see a noticeable difference in hair growth, not only cattle, but sheep and goats, and and the quality of their hide. And it's not a product that has a has a cycle to where they grow hair and shuck because it's just pure nutrition, it's not it's not melatonin. You can still do any of that on top of that if you want to. But that's a product that I would feed every single animal that I had. We also have some other products. We we have some heat con heat control products. If you have a facility that is hot in the summertime to help keep these animals cool, on feed, and performing for us, we have some products that are really good. You know, those stem from my background in the feed yard industry. There's some products out there that we feed to feed yard cattle in the summer to mitigate heat stress. And those technologies are in our product called Chill Zone. Works very well. If you have cattle in a cooler, you you may not need it, but otherwise it works really good for other animals. Those would be the primary ones that I I think are are real important.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

You don't always need supplements. Sometimes you just need a better quality feed.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Well, to some extent, you know, we we we we have the things that we think, again, that that promote soundness and good hair quotenose animals that we can feed every day, we we've tried to put in the bag to feed. The supplements will the supplements will help, but you know, we we don't have we don't currently have yet, I've been I've been testing several. We don't currently have a soundness supplement. Uh you know, soundness supplements are good. Uh there's various ways to go about that, and and we may be coming out with one very soon that's very novel in its approach. But you'll you'll never you'll never turn a uh unsound one into a sound one with supplements. They may help on the margins, but if if we start with an unsound one, it's not gonna fix it.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, and Troy kind of said that on his episode when we talked. He says you can't supplement your way out of a bad animation.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

That's correct. Poor Yeah, you're working on the margins. You're working on the margins.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

I pair I paraphrase. If someone only had a limited budget, where would you focus first? Uh so it could be in the whole feed program, or or if you have enough money to add in some stuff.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah, so I'm gonna talk about our stuff, right, wrong, or different, because that's what I know, and I don't want to talk about other people's stuff. So if I had to choose among our supplements for cattle, sheep, or goats, it would be showzone. If I couldn't feed all of them, that's the one that I'm gonna feed because I I I'm such a believer in that product. We actually have good data. We have actually randomized, replicated studies measuring hair growth, which not many hair supplements have. Uh, so it it works really well.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

What do people do with heifers that might hurt them long term? We kind of covered that already, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yep. I think one thing we can get them too fat. If we get these heifers fat, uh, you know, not only can we interfere with getting them bred as a heifer, but we could deposit enough fat in that udder that we we have poor milking females for the rest of their life. So not getting those heifers too fat is is probably the most important thing in terms of long-term production. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I I didn't know what the fat thing, you know, besides the visual part of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, depositing fat in that depositing fat in the udder would be would be a negative for sure. Now it's gonna make that make that heifer look better as a show heifer because it's gonna drop that rear flank, make her balance up, you know, it's gonna make her look better, but she may not be a good cow after that.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, if it was a market animal, that'd be fine.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

So you've worked at a pretty high level in the large-scale cattle nutrition. What are some of the principles that we should be applying in the show barn that maybe we aren't?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, so you know, uh the majority of my time is spent, you know, in feed yards when on in commercial rations. Uh, so I very much understand that. I can tell you, so there is nothing magic about show feed. People ask me all the time, what makes show feed different? And what makes show feed different? There's really a couple of things. One, it's made to be, in case in our case, it's made to be more consistent. You know, we want every single bag to be identical to to each other. And we work really, really hard on that. And hopefully we accomplish that. But that that's what we our focus is. Also on the quality of ingredients. Uh, you know, we don't we don't stray from that. When when some products in a feed yard setting, if products are getting high, you know, we'll look for alternatives. On the show feed, we don't. You know, when I I the highest quality barley I can find, I I bring it out of Canada. And when prices went through the roof with the threat of tariffs, uh we just still bought it. You know, and when we didn't raise our prices, that just ate into our margins for a minute. But I we're not gonna change based on prices because we we think we have formulas at work. Uh I'm probably not answering your question exactly. Help me focus in on what what specifically you want.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

I just want to know what kind of things carry over from the feedback aspect that we should be doing in the in the show barns.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Yep. So it's similar. Nutrition is similar, right? I mean, and and ruminants are ruminants, cattle are cattle. Uh so the base nutrition is similar. There's some things we put in the show feed that are different than commercial because in the commercial we're not worried about so much hair coat quality, maybe even soundness, and and some we're worried about soundless, but not to the extent we are in a in the show ring. So we put some things in show feed that are different from that. I can tell you, uh, you know, we would have a lot of lot of customers that feed their own feed or do a grinded mix or something. Ones that own a feed yard, they'll feed their feed yard ration to their animals for a period of time, which is fine. It'll be a lot cheaper than show feed, right? Because it's it's commercial feed. But I I will also tell you the the it's gonna sound silly, but I come from both worlds. The longer you feed that animal a feed yard ration, it's gonna look more like a feed yard steer and and not a sh and not a show steer, if that makes sense. You know, these are show animals, they they just look different. It's a it's a dog and pony show, right? They they've got to look the part to be successful in a ring.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Yeah, well, I've seen animals come out of feedlots before, you know. Uh I worked in a feedlot for a while, and the guy that I worked for, his kid had uh a calf or two every year, and it's like you can tell the feedlot steers, number one, because a lot of times they're the ones that win rate of gain.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And then they don't place well in the classes.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

That's right, that's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

If we stripped everything down, what are two to three things that actually drive performance in our animals?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

It's it's obviously the ration, the the base ration, the amount that they're consuming, and so and then consistency. Consistency is so important in everything we're doing, the feeding times and the amount that we feed uh is so important. Like we were talking earlier, you know, your your your calves are eating 18 pounds, and if if you decided, shoot, you know, I'm behind tomorrow, I'm gonna give them 24 pounds, that's not gonna help us out. That's gonna hurt us because we're probably gonna knock them off feed, and then they're gonna eat 12 to 14 pounds for a few days trying to come back. So it's being very consistent, being very methodical and consistent. So we want to maximize the amount of feed we're giving them, but sometimes that means going slow in amount the amounts that we increase per day. You know, just uh take it, take your time, be very slow and methodical, and be very consistent about the amount that we feed and the timing. I'm gonna come back to timing. I think timing of feeding is is crucial.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Within what kind of window? Because like last last night I was about 40 minutes late and we got home late, and then this morning we fed a little early because I had to be here to meet with you. Like, is there a little bit of a time frame?

SPEAKER_00 33:26

I think that's okay. That's okay because life happens, right? And you probably get kids in sports and everything else, and it's hard to do it all. Uh, but just be as consistent as you can. Uh, you know, I if you're plus or minus a half hour, I think you're you're fine. You're fine.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah, when I was at the feed lot, we were very consistent. You know, you start at the same time every day. So they were basically all getting hit at the same time. Do you have anything else that I didn't cover before we start to wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

No, I I don't I don't think so. I think we covered a lot of it. I will tell you this. So this has nothing to do with show feed and nothing to do with nutrition, but it's something that every kid out there, regardless of your budget, regardless of anything that you can do, the number one thing is showmanship. Because you you can have the best animal. And if you can't show it, it's not going to do very well. Uh that's true in all species. It's probably the most, in my opinion, it's it's as true as it's more true in sheep than the others. I you know, a good showman can really elevate an animal, or they can a poor showman can really really make an animal go the other way. And so spend a lot of time on showmanship. You know, feed them right, get advice, you know, buy our show feed, please, but please spend time on showmanship because getting an animal shown. And and I give this example too. I I give a lot of talks to to people that are showing lambs, and I ask him, you know, you know, how long are you setting up your animals per day? And and I know what we did, you know. We we had so many on feed sometimes. You you jump in a pen and you'd grab one, you'd brace it for what felt like an eternity but was really 30 to 40 seconds, then you let him race and you grab the next one. But compare that to how long we're embracing lambs in a in a larger show. We're talking 15 minutes. Uh that you're in the ring trying to get that animal shown, and it needs to have that stanoma, and you need to have that stanoma to do that. So, you know, one thing we we tried to do at times is you know, set up an animal and keep it set up for two or three songs on the radio, and it seems like an eternity, but that's only about six minutes. So spending more time on showmanship is is just so key to it on everything uh the cattle, steers, heifers, goats, sheep. But that's something any kid can do with, you know, like I said, it doesn't take a lot of money, it just takes takes commitment.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah, investment and a little bit of time. Or or a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

A lot of time, yep.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Sure it is.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Uh well, let's start to land the plane here. For someone just getting started, what's one thing they should fix immediately in their feeding program?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Well, make sure you're feeding a good feed, you know, know what you're feeding, and make sure you you have a good supply and it's fresh and very consistent. Uh so so that that'd be that'd be key. Be able to evaluate your animal and know what it needs to make it better. And if you can't do that yet, ask for help. Ask for help. Hey, what what's my animal need? And then then you can start you can start doing things to help that animal not hurt it.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

I can't believe we didn't cover this, and it just came to my mind. But what role does hay and water play in all this? I notice all of your tags say feed long stem, grass hay, and plenty of water.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Uh well, understand this. Sometimes things are on tags because they have to be. So, but but both hay and water are important. They are very important. So fresh water, fresh, clean water uh is obviously we all we all think fresh, clean water is important. I mean, regularly, whether you have an automatic water or buckets, regularly clean that, provide fresh, clean water. So, you know, water is one of the number one nutrients that we provide these animals and shouldn't be overlooked. Uh hay. So we we like to on our, you know, on most of the time on our cattle, whether it's breeding heifers or steers, uh, that are usually turned, you know, from this time forward when they're being locked up during the day, whether it's under fans or in a cooler or whatever, when they turn out at night, free access to grass hay is the most common thing to do. It's just free choice grass hay. All they can consume work works really well. You know, when we're talking about the sheep and goats, it's a lot different scenario. You can free choice them. It's done successful. You know, you're trying to keep the big bellies sometimes off these sheep and goats. So if you hand feed them as you're individually feeding these animals, you know, you can just feed them a handful, a fistful of hay. They do need hay, that they are ruminants. That rumen needs forage, needs hay to keep functioning correctly, but it doesn't take a whole lot on a sheep and goat.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

I've heard it called like a small bird's nest. I think that's a fairly good analogy of what they need per day. So, and that works well. But you you can on sheep and goats, you can use alfalfa hay or grass hay, uh, what whatever's the highest quality. It doesn't need if it's alfalfa, it doesn't need to be real rich, uh leafy alfalfa. But uh grass hay also also works well.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Okay. I just interrupted you with what we were saying there, but on the flip side of you know what we should be feeding and stuff, what's something more advanced feeders should be focusing on that people tend to overlook?

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Well, I I think again, it's I'm gonna sound redundant, but I think the more advanced feeders are just very good at being able to look at their animal and know what it needs, what it needs to do. And once we know what it needs to do, and then you can you either know or you can talk to myself or others, and we can help you get there. If you say my animal needs this, we can we can change the feeding program to accomplish that. That's the the key to the most the more advanced feeders. I mean, they just do a lot of things right. Uh the advanced feeders. Uh, you know, they're very consistent in what they do, they spend a lot of time in what they do, and then they're also good at evaluating their animals.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Awesome. Well, Rob, I appreciate you taking the time to break all this down. Anytime. For me personally, this is one of those areas where the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to it, but also how important it is to get it right. If you got value out of this episode, share it with someone else who's trying to figure this out just like we are. That's how we all get better. We'll catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

All right, sounds good.