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Up to 400 Days of Release Most of our feedlot clients do not like to reimplant. The reasons are many, but loss of production for a few days, danger to the cattle and the people handling the cattle are the main reasons. Feedlot operators would like a product with a sustained release of the growth effect over a long period of time. VetLife is now marketing ENCORE(TM) for up to 400 days and COMPUDOSE(TM) for up to 200 days. The practical economic effective time may be less. Clearances: Pasture, Feedlot, Suckling Calves One of the applications for a long play out product is a combination of starting, growing or grazing. We have clients that grow light cattle in the feedlot, then graze small grain pasture and then return to the feedlot for a second growing phase. It appears that an implant that has a longer pay out may have a place in their scheme. For light weight cattle grown and later finished, it is impractical for some of our clients to reimplant their heifers and steers. Pasture Trials Twenty pasture trials presented by VetLife demonstrate the efficiency of the Encore product. The improvement of weight gain over the control was 20.3 percent. The inspection of the data looks like even a higher percent is possible for the faster gaining cattle. CAUTION: For low energy pastures, my recommendation is not to implant at all. It takes a good pasture or a good ration with gains over a pound and a half per day to get implants to work. Implant Techniques Encore and Compudose are larger implants and special techniques are needed to insert the implant and get retention. CAUTION: Get advice from your supplier for the correct implanting procedures for Encore and Compudose. The implant is coated with oxytetracycline to assist in the prevention of abscessed implant sites. Beware of dipping cattle immediately following implanting. When the cattle shake their head and body after coming out of the vat, the implant may be lost. Feedlot Use of Encore or Compudose The main use for an extended time release implant may be for feeding light cattle where reimplanting is impractical. Other implant tactics may give more gain and improve feed efficiency as compared to the single estrogen products. The use of the estrogen/trebalone products will usually give more gain. Revalor-H and S, Synovex Plus and the Component products from VetLife with estrogen/trebalone are examples of the combination products, but they may have to be reimplanted for light cattle. Another method to get the performance extended to the end of the feeding period for heifers is to feed MGA. Feeding MGA causes the heifer to produce her own estrogen from her ovaries. Planning Your Tactics The strategy for the pasture, growing and feedlot operations is to maximize gain and cost efficiency. The tactic for each lot of cattle will be different. The extended time release products are another tool to build the program. Check with your consultant, study the data and design the tactic for each lot, pen or group of cattle. Increase in Bullers and Prolapses With any estrogen implant product, the incidence of buller steers is particularly a problem in pasture situations. This is probably not any more of a problem with the time release products as the other estrogen products. If bullers cannot be removed from a pasture, then not implanting at all may be the best tactic. Estrogen implants also increase the incidence of prolapsed heifers. There is a trade off of the increased economic benefit of the implant versus the management needs to control the side effects. |
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