Jump-Starting Calves
Creep-feeding is one of several beneficial practices this producer has integrated into his beef-management program.

Gene Driggers was faced with bawling calves walking the fenceline after they’d been weaned. It’s a problem faced by many calf producers, both large and small.

Driggers’ solution? Creep feeders.

“My calves are born from Nov. 1 to mid-January,” says Driggers, who runs about 100 cows near Hamer, S.C. “They are turned out onto stockpiled bermudagrass pasture and hay with the cows.

“Near the end of February, I put out the creep feeder for the calves with 14% Jump Start from Southern States. I keep them on Jump Start until the end of March, then I remove the feeder as the grass greens. It gives calves a bump up.”

About 30 days before weaning, Driggers puts the creep feeder back into the pasture.

Driggers, a construction site-preparation contractor, brought 40 cows with him when he moved from the Columbia, S.C., area seven years ago. He sought the local Southern States representatives to help form a nutrition and management program for his herd.

Mike Peacock, beef feed sales and marketing manager for Southern States, is impressed with Driggers’ integrated management practices.

“He uses good genetics in a controlled breeding season,” Peacock notes. “Then he uses liquid supplement to get maximum value from forage, along with a good mineral program. By creep-feeding his calves and preconditioning them, Driggers weans heavy, healthy calves he can market at premium prices.”

Driggers, farming with the help of his wife, Margaret, and son Eric, uses purebred Angus bulls on black baldy cows. Bulls are turned in with the cows for 75 days, beginning in mid-January.

“I bring all the cows into a 25-acre maternity pasture about Nov. 1,” Driggers reports. “Until they are through calving, they only get hay, Mol-Mix liquid supplement and free-choice dry minerals.” Mol-Mix is a sugarcane-molasses-based product from Southern States.

According to Will Baxley, field sales associate from the Southern States retailer in Lumberton, N.C., the protein in Mol-Mix stimulates growth of microorganisms in the rumen responsible for fiber digestion.

After calving, cows are turned out on stockpiled Coastal, hay and rye, until new bermudagrass greens up in late April.

“I keep three lick tanks of Mol-Mix in each pasture. The Southern States salesman checks them weekly and keeps them filled,” Driggers says. “As the bermuda greens up, the cows wean themselves from Mol-Mix.”

Driggers also keeps high-grade minerals for his cows. He uses Bova-Min and Mag-A-Min, but Baxley also recommends Beef Breeder Mineral with Zinpro 4-Plex, which has a high concentration of magnesium.

Driggers gives a lot of credit for the improvements in his herd to Southern States.

“Will Baxley and other Southern States people have helped get us on a nutrition and animal-health program that has sharply turned my herd around since I’ve been with them,” he says. “I’ve been more than satisfied with their products and service.”