What Do Cows Eat On a Farm? The Bovine Diet

A farm’s success depends on what you feed them, but what do cows eat? While options are diverse, proper nutrition is the key to health and productivity. Let’s explore the cow’s diet below, including what farmers can do to improve it.

What Do Cows Eat On a Farm?

Cows eat grass, grains, and crop remains. These are farm staples and available all year round. But that is not all there’s for cows to feed on. Plants like legumes (alfalfa, clover, lucerne) are also common delicacies.

Away from forage, cattle need supplemental feeding and a regular supply of minerals. We call these concentrates. They pack a load of nutrients, allowing farmers to regulate diet and meet nutritional needs.

A healthy cow eats around 25-50 pounds daily and feeds for about 5 hours. That’s about 2% of its weight. The specific feed amount depends on various factors, such as age, health condition, and food type.

What Does It Matter What a Cow Eats?

The food cows eat doesn’t just fill them. They need it to stay alive, add weight, breed, and produce milk. Some foods are richer in nutrients than others, while some have more fiber and help with rumination and gut health.

A cow’s balanced diet contains specified energy-giving foods, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. It also includes plenty of fresh and clean water for various body functions and cooling.

The feed amount must fall within recommended levels. Overfeeding wastes food and increases costs. It can also lead to digestion problems. On the other hand, underfeeding makes the animals unhealthy and less productive.

How Farmers Feed Cows

Dairy farmers may graze their cattle in open fields where they wander freely over vast areas. They can feed them in confined areas. The choice depends on the farm size, resource availability, production goals, etc.

Pasture Feeding

The cows graze in an open field, eating natural or planted vegetation. Pasture feeding is the most economical method. It reduces labor and its associated costs. However, it requires more space for the animals to roam.

Stall Feeding or Zero Grazing

The animals feed in specially constructed enclosures. The farmer brings the food to them based on their nutritional requirements. Although it increases costs, this feeding method gives you greater dietary control.

Nutritional Requirements for Cows

What cows eat must serve their daily maintenance and productivity demands. The nutrients they need fall into these categories: energy foods and fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.

Energy Foods and Fats

Energy foods enable bodily functions, including fertility and weight gain. Popular sources are fiber-containing foods like hay, silage, and direct pastures. Energy-rich supplements include high-starch grains like corn and barley.

Protein Foods

Cows need protein for growth and general health. This nutrient has various sources, but in different amounts. Apart from forage, farmers obtain high-quantity protein from these supplemental feeds: soybean meal, fish meal, cottonseed, and canola.

Vitamins and Minerals

A cow needs vitamins and minerals for a healthy body, proper breeding, and milk production. It boosts their immunity, reducing veterinary costs. Vitamin sources include regular feeds and supplemental rations like concentrates.

On the other hand, minerals come from regular feeds, salt licks, and commercial supplements as additives. They address dietary requirements based on a cow’s needs, including age and health condition.

Fiber Requirements

Fiber has no nutritional value to cattle, including cows. However, it helps with rumination (chewing cud) and digestion. It helps stimulate saliva production and maintain PH, preventing bloating and rumen acidosis.

Sources vary from forage like hay to wheat bran. Farmers must limit fiber intake to essential volumes. Too much of this ingredient reduces milk production and causes digestion problems.

Comparing Cow Feed Types

We can group farm cow feed into these main groups: pasture, hay and silage, and grains and concentrates. The farmer decides which feed types to give the animals. Let’s start with pasture, the most popular farm food.

Pasture

Pasture is plant vegetation that cattle directly graze on. It mainly comprises grass types, such as Rhodes grass. It can also be legumes like clover, lucerne, and other non-grass plants. Pasture is either planted or natural. The planted type is more expensive but easier to care for.

Hay and Silage

Sometimes, the farmer stores cow food in dry or partially dry form. Hay is dried grass preserved for later use. The time can be winter when the fields are less accessible. Silage is corn or another plant cut green and fermented in controlled conditions for over three weeks.

Grains and Concentrates

Grains like corn and barley are crucial parts of a cow’s diet. Concentrates are cow feeds with concentrated nutrient amounts. Feed manufacturers specially formulate to contain specific nutrients, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and various additives.

Crop and Grain Byproducts

Maize stalks that remain after harvesting corn make good feed for cows. The same applies to the straw from wheat, barley, and oat stalks. They make dry food that cattle can feed on when pastures are scarce.

Fruit peels and pulp are also nutritious byproducts that can benefit cows. Examples include citrus pulp from juicing processes. They are not provided in their raw form but are dried and sometimes made into pellets.

Wet brewer and distiller’s grains are another example. Brewer’s grains are byproducts of the beer-making process. On the other hand, distiller’s grains come from the distilling process of spirits.

What is the Best Food for Cows to Increase Milk?

The best food for dairy cows must go beyond regular maintenance needs. It contains the right milk-producing foods, such as high-energy feed and proteins. More importantly, it contains adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Wet vs. Dry Food

Dairy cow forage and supplemental feeds are either wet or dry. Silage is wet forage, while hay and straw are dry types. Various other feeds, like concentrates, are available in wet or dry form.

While each type has nutrients, their concentration per unit varies. Dry forage packs more nutrients, making small amounts more helpful than wet forage. It also causes fewer stomach issues than wet food.

Total Mixed Ration (TMR)

Total mixed ration (TMR) involves blending various feed types in controlled amounts to achieve a desired ration. The mixing equipment produces a homogeneous mixture that cows can eat.

Dairy farms use TMR to produce feed rations based on a cow’s daily requirements. It helps them control productivity and costs to achieve a good “return on investment” (ROI).

How Farmers Are Innovating Cow Diets

Cow food accounts for over half of a farmer’s expenses, especially when keeping dairy cows. Finding a balance between production and feed amount is, therefore, critical.

Many farms today work with vets and other specialists to make a cow’s feed more helpful and cost-effective. They do so by finding ways to utilize farm waste and process byproducts.

Examples include peelings from the kitchen, post-harvest materials, etc. They reduce feeding costs while providing crucial nutrients and increasing productivity.

The process includes utilizing RMR mixers to control feed ingredients, achieving better results than regular feeds. It allows them to respond to the specific food needs of pregnant or milk-producing cows.

Conclusion

Cows enjoy high-quality and appetizing foods. They choose what they find attractive and palatable. Therefore, understanding their diet needs can help farmers produce more (and high-quality) milk. It also helps manage costs, making farms more efficient.