Justin A Ramirez, M.S. - Livestock Nutritionist

01/11/2025

Howdy Yall!

I’m looking at increasing my nutrition content this year and need yalls help!! ❗️ ‼️

Feel free to respond to this comment or shoot me a personal note.

Looking for information such as specie interest (cattle, horses, sheep, goats etc), written articles, short tip reels/videos, virtual consultation Q/A, audio recordings etc. How do you like to learn? Is it in the classroom, couch, or on horseback?

During my consultations we cover so much ground and producers want to record to review content.

If you know me personally, you know I love education and helping others learn more.

This year I want to help others who want to know the whys and why nots about their animal’s nutritional needs, debunk myths, know what makes a feed good or bad, know if someone is selling fluff, and more importantly how to save money.

Let me know what yall think on how I can help!

Feel free to share!!

God bless and Gog Em!

01/11/2025

Teamwork makes the dream work!

01/11/2025

Happy Friday yall!

Getting videos sent to me like this is from one of my amazing producers, Gio Benitez, is one of the best things I love about my job as a livestock nutritionist.

If you’re working with a nutritionist, I’d highly recommend letting them know when things are working just as often as when they’re not.

Different species can show you results sooner sooner than others but I can assure you, teamwork makes the dream work!

Gio and I work as a team for their family cattle business. Whether we’re working on grower rations for these feeder calves or total mixed rations (TMRs) for their bred cows, communication is essential.

Working with a nutritionist can help give you direction, keep your budget fixed, set expectations, and more importantly, save you time. You can’t get that back.

Pro tip: bacteria in your cow’s or your horse’s digestive tract can take a couple weeks to adjust, hence the mild setback you might see early before they begin to put on weight. You can, however, avoid those setbacks.

Holler if I can be of any help!
Happy New Year

God bless and Gig ‘Em!

01/03/2025

Howdy Yall, Happy New Year!

This year I’m looking at doing much more for yall including some videos with nutrition tips and how to start building your own program based on science and research.
Stay tuned for those to come!

I’ll be heading down to Mission, TX at the end of the month to do a presentation with Murdoch’s.
We’re gonna be covering some great cattle nutrition but space is limited!

If you’d like to reserve a spot, scan this QR code below.

Holler if you have any questions! Hope to see yall there!

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

-Witten, Kristy, and Justin

12/17/2024

Howdy Yall!
I wanted to share some info that has been coming up in my consultations more frequently as of late.

Whether we’re talking cattle, horses, or even humans, the gut plays a much bigger role than we give it credit. I personally take pre/probiotics because my gut directly affects my immune system by roughly 70%.

Our horses and livestock get energy from the bugs in their gut via fermentation of the diet. This energy supports body condition and immune function. If our animals are healthy, we can expect those animals to gain weight.

On the flip side, if we’re not supporting the immune system with vitamins and minerals in the diet, they are more susceptible to sickness. That sickness eats up a lot of energy that is in the diet.

This is why animals that are chronically ill, tend to be thin or hard keepers.

Below are some photos of a horse belonging to a horse trainer I’ve been working with on his program. We walk through his barn to determine where we’re at and where we’d like to be.

When I hear “I have a hard keeper” or “this horse used to be really good and lately they seem like a different horse” tells me to ask more gut related questions like “do we have a history of stress related performance” or “what does our diet look like, do we have gut support going?”
High stress leads to more acid production which can kill beneficial bacteria. Zinc plays a big role in gut integrity.

From there, I built a horse feed targeting those areas of concern, gut focused. Made it low starch and sugar, concentrated vitamin and performance trace mineral pack, and gut support. When we attack the root cause, we can sometimes get results rather quickly. My understanding is that these photos were roughly 2 weeks apart.

I hope this helps you understand more of what might be going on in your animals diet.

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

11/28/2024

Happy Thanksgiving from the Ramirez family!
I’m thankful for my wonderful family and our health.

What are y’all thankful for this season?

Thank y’all for the opportunity to work with yalls programs.

May yall have a wonderful and blessed day!

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!
Witten, Justin, and Kristy.

09/25/2024

Howdy RGV livestock owners! 💥💥

Mark your calendars for October 16, 2024 for a great workshop I will be apart of with Texas A&M and Prairie View Extension along with the Willacy County Soil and Water Conservation District.
I will be giving a presentation on building a forage based program for cattle, which will help you be as cost effective as possible.

I will also be scanning forages using one of our latest technologies from Cargill, NeoSpectra’s handheld NIR scanner, which will provide dry matter, crude protein, fat, digestible fibers, and ash in minutes.

If you’re looking at getting your forage tested with results provided onsite, please stop by!
We can also build you a fall/winter program around your forage based on your goals and program needs.

Holler if you have any questions!

God bless and Gig ‘Em!

09/10/2024

Forage Based Programs

Howdy yall,

Last week we touched on forage quality and how that can affect intake.

This week we’ll continue that conversation and take it a step further on how to take the next steps building a program around forage.

So by now, you’re probably on one side of the fence when it comes to feeding heavy grain or relying primarily on forage with little to no grain when it comes to your horse or cattle program.

Now cows and horses are different, but building a diet around the forage is very similar.

We start by testing the forage to determine nutritive value which is based on crude protein, ADF, and NDF; essentially protein and how mature or immature the forage is.

So in other words, quality will dictate how much your animal can eat of that forage “on average” to then calculate how much protein, amino acids, and energy will be consumed per day.

Then, we turn around and determine what our requirements are based on level of activity, body condition, and or stage of production. Low activity or low gain versus high activity or high gain.

Now we compare what the forage is contributing and if a grain is needed to fill in the gap for desired results and or performance.

How we can get there cost effectively is how we can save money and more importantly, time.

If you need help building a program around your forage, let’s work together to help you get there.

PM me to learn more about testing your forage for free and receiving a consultation to come along with it.

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

Howdy! I am a livestock nutritionist with experience and graduate education in various species.

09/03/2024

Howdy yall,

Things have been a little busy as of late. Having an about to be 2 year old little boy sure keeps you busy. I wanted to share some insights on a topic I’ve been talking about recently, forage quality and how that affects voluntary intake.

In short, voluntary intake is what we may use to determine how much of diet (hay/grass and feed) will your cow or horse voluntarily eat per day if it’s kept in front of them.

The more mature a hay or grass is, generally we’d expect voluntary intake to go down. It takes much longer to digest lower quality forage.

There’s ways to work around that but if your diet doesn’t get adjusted and forage is the bulk of your diet, you may see a decrease in weight over time.
In other words, if you feed your horses 5-6 lbs (1 scoop twice a day) and 2-4 flakes of hay per day and your hay quality goes down, you’re likely to see a drop in weight as you exercise them.

On average when I make a general blanket recommendation it’s to feed 2.25% BW in forage and 0.5-0.7% BW in a concentrate feed, you can make pretty quick adjustments 30 days in to iron out the details.

If you’re feeding the same grain and “the same hay” then your animal starts losing weight? It’s likely the forage quality dropped from the last time you bought hay from the feed store or farmer.

Not all hay will be the same quality at all times.

One way to test this in your pasture; put out a round bale and see how long it takes your animals to go through it.

Divide how much the bale weighs by how many animals are there and how many days it took. If there is significant amount of waste, you should factor that in. As much as 10-25% can affect your daily intakes and your pocket book.

Do this exercise every time you put out hay and you’ll soon gather that there will be patterns that may correlate to your hay purchase.

The longer it takes for animals to go through a bale of hay isn’t necessarily a good thing all the time. When you limit voluntary intake, you also risk losing weight from lack of intake (carbohydrates, protein, fats).

Hay is not a filler, however it can be if you buy poor quality hay.

Hope this helps understand a little more on this topic.

God bless and Gig ‘Em!

07/09/2024

Howdy RGV Beef producers! 🧨

I’ll be with teaming up with Agrilife Extension on the 24th analyzing hay with Cargill’s handheld NIR scanner to provide results onsite.

Bring your core samples and our scanner will have your results texted to your phone in less than 5 minutes.

If you’re a serious producer that wants to be efficient, we can plug your results in Cargill’s Beef MAX software to see what’s the most cost efficient way moving forward based on your programs wants and needs.

Holler if you’d like to learn more about this program or if you’d like your program customized around your hay quality.

Share with someone who could benefit!

God bless and Gig ‘Em!

05/30/2024

Howdy yall!

I’ve been out in the country recently and we’re blessed to say April showers have certainly brought May flowers this year.

While future projections are suggesting normal rainfall, they’re also saying above average temperatures.

Longer intervals between rain showers can potentially cause more mature hay to be produced.

I’ve been asked what grass/hay is better for horses so they don’t colic. I won’t dive into that specifically but what I will say is test your hay regardless.

It can be fertilized, irrigated, and w**d sprayed but one caveat to that is it can also become overly mature.

When we have overly mature forages, it takes longer to break down and pass through the digestive tract.

Thus, it can potentially be an underlying cause to an impaction colic, more so, with horses that have sensitive guts especially during high temperatures.

Water intake and electrolytes will be one to monitor if during hotter days.

Subsequently, the longer it takes to go through the digestive tract, it also limits the amount the horse can eat throughout the day, thus we begin to lose weight.

Be mindful that water intake is directly related to feed/hay intake. The less your animal drinks, the less feed/hay they’ll consume as well.

This is also an issue on the cattle side but we can bump up the protein via supplementation to improve digestibility. We can’t necessarily do the same on the equine side.

The site of fermentation in horses, the cecum, is after the stomach and digestive tract. In cattle, it’s in front of the digestive tract.

Test your hay to avoid issues down the road!

Hope this helps y’all a little more on this subject. If it helped you, please hit that share button!

God bless and Gig Em!

05/15/2024

Howdy yall,

I was visiting with a producer recently and he shared some great feedback that reminded me of hot topic, cost of feed.
Typically when we purchase feed we have somewhat of an idea of what we want. Protein, fat, and fiber are generally the feed things we look at first. Then we ask what the price is and if they are close to what we want, we tend to go cheaper…. at least the first few times.

For me, those are important but I like to see if there are any additives built in to support what we’re looking to address. In some cases gut health, rumen or gastric support, and vitamins and minerals for immune support, reproduction, etc.

If you ask yourself, what is the symptom I’m trying to address, chances are you might be able to find an additive and have it built into your ration to avoid hand adding it yourself.

When I’m building a ration, I ask “what concerns are there that we may need to address.” Then follow research suggested recommendations on how to address those concerns with specific additives.
For this producer to say his medicine bill dropped next to nothing dealing with high stressed calves speaks volumes on the team work we’ve put into his operation.
In addition, his labor on doctoring calves has dropped substantially. This in return has helped his business be much more cost efficient.
All of this was possible by adding specific additives into a ration I built around the concerns he was looking to address.
We both worked together on making sure they were fed at specific rates. Team work makes the dream work!

Hearing testimonials like this assures me that these goals are attainable for anyone.

Walk through your program top to bottom on what concerns you’re facing. If you need some help, don’t hesitate to reach out.

As always, hope this helps you learn a little more on this subject.

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

04/17/2024

Howdy yall,

I recently had a conversation with a beef producer around feeding cattle feed, versus supplementing hay and cubes.

We won’t necessarily dive into grazing systems but more so around someone else’s comment on buying cattle from this producer only if they weren’t on feed.

More specifically, he had no interest in purchasing cattle that couldn’t hold up body condition just in pasture without “feed”.

I quote feed because when he was told cattle were on hay and cubes, he had no problem with that program.

Some might say “well that’s the same thing”. Yet, others might say “they can’t be on feed, it’ll mask their inefficiency”.

Now without getting into the w**ds, pun intended, let’s just keep it basic in that if cattle were stocked appropriately and were not in a drought; grass might be enough to maintain body condition with only a loose mineral for supplementation.

Now, if we overstock our grazing pastures, even the most efficiently bred cattle will struggle without supplementation. You can’t make something out of nothing. The bacteria in their rumens need material to ferment in order to generate energy for body condition etc.

Whether you’re supplementing hay and cubes versus a total mixed ration (TMR) that is balanced for daily requirements, the goal is the same in either program. How can we get from point A to point B the cheapest and fastest if needed.

Now at the end of the day; you’re going to want the program that pencils out the best no matter its delivery.

This is the same strategy in all species. You’re paying for roughage, protein, fat, and a VTM pack in both forms, just depends which specs and pencils out best for your program. Not all programs work for everyone, so work with what works best for your set up.

As always, I hope this helps you understand more on supplementation. Holler if I can be of any help!

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

03/08/2024

Howdy yall!

I’ve been having some recent conversations that stirred up a topic I wanted to discuss; and that is feeding with a purpose.

At times we supplement with no real goal in mind in that we get into a habit and forget to reassess our current program.

Just because a sack of cubes “worked” for one group of cattle, doesn’t necessarily mean the same program will work for another set. Their requirements or stage of production might alter that.

Similarly, on the equine side; we feed a scoop and 2 flakes of hay twice a day won’t necessarily work for every horse you own.

That might be a general rule of thumb to get you going but it may cost you more than you think.

Believe me, even I get caught up in a routine because let’s face it, we like having them because of their sense of comfort. It might take someone to point it out to us before we think twice about it.

Reassess and reevaluate our programs is necessary to keep up with rising costs.

Pro tip, when you’re trying to determine how much to feed based on percent body weight, that number is based on a dry matter basis. Meaning how much is that animal eating without water factored in.

It’s like eating a salad, 60-70% of what you eat is water. If you dry the salad, that’s how much material you actually consumed.

So in order to get the number you want to feed, otherwise known as “as fed” values, we simply use the percentage of body weight number we got and divide by the dry matter percent of the hay or grain.

General ranges for hay are 87-90% dry matter. General rangers for pelleted feeds are 87-90% and textured feeds are 83-87% dry matter.

So let’s say you have a 1,000 lb animal feeding 2% body weight in hay with 1% in a pelleted grain is calculated as follows.

1,000x.002= 20lbs dry matter/.87=23lbs as fed of hay
1,000x.01= 10lbs of grain/.88= 11.4lbs as fed of grain.

Hope this helps yall a little more on this subject!

God Bless and Gig ‘Em!

02/28/2024

Howdy Rio Grande Valley beef cattle producers!

We have a workshop coming up March 20.

We will be covering organic trace minerals, maximizing genetic potential via cost effective feeding strategies, including strategies during drought conditions, and how to prepare for future weather conditions.

Weather forecasts are suggesting we’ll have a relatively wet spring with dryer conditions continuing through the summer and fall. Similar to conditions we’ve had the last couple years.

If you’d like to have your hay complimentary tested with results provided onsite, bring core samples of your hay.
Results will be a much better representation of your pasture versus hand grabbed samples.

Holler if y’all have any questions!

God bless and Gig ‘Em!

02/28/2024

Howdy Yall,

Wanted to share some thoughts around putting on weight versus muscle.
No matter the specie you’re working with, whether cattle, horses, or even us people, it’s all relative.

Weight can be put on in either muscle or fat. Fat can also refer to cover or bloom as we like to say in Texas.

Muscle is going to be added via amino acids in the diet and also rumen microbial protein in ruminants. When we’re formulating cattle diets, we look at the metabolizable protein in which the animal will absorb in the small intestine.

Similarly on the equine side, we look at that as well, lwhich most of it can be determined from the diet because there is no rumen you have to worry about like in cattle.

So don’t focus on crude protein given it’s only referencing the available nitrogen in the diet.
Amino acids are what? The building blocks of protein. So the more we know the quality of the proteins in the diet, we can anticipate better performance for muscle developement.

Producers who’ve been in the cattle industry for over 49 years were apprehensive when I first came to work with them proposing a 16% protein ration for their calves. They said they’ve never used anything over 10% because anything higher could burn them up.

With lower protein diets, you’re likely higher in cereal grains given they generally don’t contribute much protein. Cereal grains like corn, oats, and barley are considered carbohydrate sources and contribute high amounts of energy to the diet.

Too much for cattle and we can bloat. Too much for horses and you’ll be riding a rocket soon enough.

However, if used correctly, they can help put on weight relatively quickly and provide that cover or bloom someone is looking for.

Keep in mind that if our goal is to put on fat, we’re simply providing excess calories in order to do so. If the requirements increase, you can lose that cover; similarly to us wanting to shed off some extra pounds.

Hope this helps understand this subject a bit more!

God bless and Gig ‘Em!