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Correction About Determining Gut Fill on Cattle 

I recently wrote a post on determining if you cattle were being limited by the amount of forage you’ve given them. It was titled “Gut Fill and How to Tell if Your Cattle Are Performing” and you can find that post here, but I made a mistake, so read this post first and then that one. Well, turns out I was WAY off about something pretty important. Today, I’d like to correct myself and let you all know that I’ve made a mistake, and I intend to correct it.

If you want to properly determine the gut fill of cattle, you need to look here.

You actually want to look just ahead of the “hooks” on your cattle. This is where you will properly determine if you cattle are getting enough feed, or if you are limiting them. Again, let me remind you that this area, which is circled in red above, should never have a depression inward. An example would be if you could go set a bowl down inside of that area. If you can do that, you’ve severely limited your cattle, and you will have health and fertility problems.

In conclusion, make sure that this area is nice and full. It doesn’t have to be bulging outward, but it sure is nice when you see that!

I hope you aren’t too harsh on me, that was a stupid mistake I made, but everyone does it.

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Chris Stelzer


Chris Stelzer is a published Author, founder of Agricultural Insights and creator of many resources that help family farmers and ranchers grow their businesses. His flagship courses are the Grazing Mastery Program and The Farm Marketing Mastery Program. 

Chris Stelzer

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