Youtubehow Much Feed to Winter a Beef Cow
Determining How Much Forage a Beef Moo-cow Consumes Each Day
April 2013
Information technology'south April and for moo-cow/calf producers in the Northern Smashing Plains the majority of the cows are calving or are about to get-go calving. Cow/calf producers during this time period are typically feeding harvested forages. A frequent question from producers is "how much will my cows eat on a daily basis"? Producers want to run across the cows' nutrient requirement, just sure don't want to over-feed expensive forages. With the dry out conditions this past summer and harvested forages at a premium, closely estimating the corporeality of feed needed to go through the winter and early spring will be important to comprise cost.
The Difference Between Intake on a Dry Matter and Every bit Is Footing
This can be a challenging concept to explain – what the difference between dry affair and as-fed – especially when nutriments for beef cows are on a dry out affair basis. Intake on a dry out affair footing means that the forage doesn't include moisture. However, we know that the forages incorporate moisture and not all forages contain the same corporeality of moisture. And so if fodder intake can exist determined on a dry out thing footing, it can hands be converted to an "as is" or "equally-fed" footing.
As an instance, if information technology were determined the daily dry matter intake of a group of 1,200 pound moo-cow eating an average quality hay is 24 pounds per head and the hay that they are consuming is 88% dry thing, these cows would consume virtually 27 (24 pounds/.88) pounds per head per day on an every bit-fed ground.
If the same group of one,200 pound cows are fed a ration where part of the ration called for corn silage to exist fed at x pounds per caput per day on a dry thing basis and the corn silage is 35% dry matter and 65% moisture, the pounds of corn silage in the diet would exist 28.five (10 pounds/.35) pounds per head per day on an every bit-fed ground. Call up that of the 28.v pounds of silage, xviii.v pounds is water and 10 pounds is silage.
What Determines Daily Forage Intake
At that place are a number of different factors that determine the daily intake of a cow. The main factors are cow weight, fodder quality, and stage of production (gestating or lactating). When feeding the aforementioned forage, cows that weigh 1,300 pounds will consume more on a daily basis compared to lighter weight cows that weigh 1,100 pounds. In addition, cows that are lactating will consume more feed than cows that are not lactating.
Forage quality impacts dry out thing intake of cows. Equally the forage quality increases, indicated as an increment in TDN content of the forage, the corporeality of the forage that the moo-cow can consume as well increases. As fodder quality increases, there is more leaf every bit compared to stem. When quality is depression, there is more than stem, therefore more cell wall contents that are not as easily digested - the forage does non pass through the rumen very fast.
In addition, as forages increase in maturity, there is an increment in lignin content. Lignin is not digested by the rumen microbes.
A good instance of how fodder quality impacts the amount a cow can swallow daily is wheat straw. Wheat straw is low in protein and energy, four.0% crude protein and forty% TDN. When cows have full access to wheat straw, they don't quit eating wheat straw considering they don't like it, they quit eating it considering they tin can't stuff anymore into their rumen. Straw has such a low digestibility that information technology takes extra time in the rumen for it to be digested and passed through the rumen before more can be consumed. Daily intake on a dry matter footing may be 1.6% to one.8% of her body weight. In comparison, corn silage will typically be about 70% TDN and lactating beef cows tin hands consume ii.5% to 2.7% of their torso weight on a dry affair basis of this feed.
There are some "pollex rules" to help estimate daily feed intake of cows on a dry matter footing consuming forages of differing quality when they are either gestating or lactating.
- When forage quality is low (52% TDN or less) and cows are not lactating, they will swallow 1.8% and lactating cows about 2.0% of their weight on a dry thing footing.
- If the fodder quality is boilerplate (TDN content betwixt 52% and 59%), not-lactating cows will consume about ii.0% to 2.ane.% and lactating cows about 2.3% of their body weight daily on a dry thing footing of this forage.
As an example, if the forage were 55% TDN and lactating cows on the average weigh 1,200 pounds, then information technology could be estimated that they would eat 28 (1200 pounds x 0.023) pounds of hay daily on a dry out matter basis. If the hay were 88% dry matter, on an "equally-fed" basis, cows would eat near 32 (28 pounds/.88) pounds daily. If there were 200 caput of cows in the herd, it would take about 3.2 ton of this hay per solar day [(200 caput x 32 lb/hd/da)/2000lb] not accounting for any waste.
Estimating daily feed intake of your cow herd is the starting time step in determining the amount of provender that is needed to be on-hand for a harvested forage feeding program. When forage availability is tight similar it is during drought, beingness able to decide how much inventory needed will help raise the turn a profit potential of the cow/calf enterprise.
Rick Rasby
Beef Specialist
University of Nebraska
Source: https://beef.unl.edu/cattleproduction/forageconsumed-day
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