Supplementing the right size of forage is so essential for success.
What is success?
How I would define success?
1. The supplementation of forage is mostly consumed by the time they have grown to a size that LMB are unable to consume them.
2. The members of the supplementation grow while by being consumed so that weight consumed exceeds the weight supplemented by no less than 2 times. (This lowers the cost of the forage to 50% of the cost per lb of the forage).
3. The supplementation provides forage appropriately sized so that the LMB can consume at satiation. Such forage would be large enough to supply a good portion of its daily satiation ration and yet small enough to be easily subdued. The LMB should encounter these prey often enough that they will get enough pursuits to fulfill the satiation ration. Smaller prey has the advantage of being more numerous than larger prey. So LMB have to do less chasing when the prey is smaller ... provided ... the prey is not TOO small. Like so many things with biological systems, there is never only one truth ... but rather two. For most all things, there can be too few, too little, or not enough of whatever ... and equally true, there can be too many, too large, or too much of whatever.
I fully support the sizes that Eric is questioning BStone about. They are less than 25% length prey that he is trying to gain a census of. These are, IMO, very important to the growth of BStone's LMB ... both today and going forward from here.
I would like you think about this question ...
If your goal is to provide supplemental forage to your LMB to grow them at maximum rates of growth and provide the most forage at the least cost ... would it be acceptable to have any 1/3 (33%) length BG mixed in with supplement?
If your answer was yes, then I will ask you this...
Would it be acceptable to have any 34% length BG mixed in with the supplement? See the difference? ... a 1% proportionate increase in length is all it takes too be too big to swallow EVEN WHEN DEAD. So if 34% length BG stand a 0 percent chance of being consumed when dead ... what are the chances that an LMB would subdue a healthy 33% length BG trying to evade it? Even if it isn't 0%, would it be reasonable to assume that there is no challenge? If the probability of consumption for a 34% length BG is 0% ... then wouldn't the probability of consumption of 33% length BG be "in the neighborhood" of 0% too? Whatever one may believe the probability to be ... it is important. Its important because for the same weight of forage supplement, there are far fewer 1/3 length BG than 1/6 length BG. Less than 10.25% as many. So think about this. If 1/6 length BG are 10 times more numerous than 1/3 length BG ... wouldn't LMB encounter 1/6 length BG 10 times more frequently than 1/3 length BG if you supplemented the same weight of them? If LMB encounter 1/3 length BG only 10% as often and if the probability of consumption is less ... wouldn't the LMB have to do "a lot more chasing" of 1/3 length BG than for 1/6 length BG? The obvious answer is yes, yes they would.
If one supplements 1/3 length BG as forage, just a 1% increase in relative length takes the forage from something that could be swallowed to something that cannot be swallowed. So I ask this ... Can a person afford for 1/3 length supplemented BG to grow in relation to the LMB? The answer is ... of course ... no. It is important to understand the optimum length of forage. When a supplement is of lengths greater than this length, and when they grow proportionately faster than LMB, they become less optimum as forage as they grow. The opposite is true when forage is supplemented below the optimum length. As they grow proportionately faster than LMB, the smaller forage become more optimum. If equal weights are supplemented, there will be more encounters and those encounters will have greater success and so there will be less chasing going on ... provided ... one did not supplement the forage "too dang small". Worst case, however, if the forage is supplemented too small ... they will be thinned down and grow to sizes that are more optimum. This isn't the case if one errs on the side of too large.
Last edited by jpsdad; 10/14/25 07:43 AM.
