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Northern New York | A question for all you cattleman out there- My father milked cows for over 40 years, and I did as well, right along side of him for many of those years. We sold the cows off several years ago and made the switch to beef( and other things). Here's my problem- as all you dairymen know, with milk cows the goal is to keep feed in front of the cows all the time. The more they eat the more they milk. My dad insists on feeding our brood cows the same way, and I can't convince him we don't need to feed them like that. I only have a small herd of Herefords (24 cows), and here is what we are feeding: my son weighed the hay today, and the bales averaged 45 lbs. each. It's mostly grass hay but stored under cover and pretty good quality. I want to feed 12 bales per day to the 24 head so each cow should be getting about 22-23 lbs. per day. We also feed 2 lbs. per head/day of a grain mix that is 1/4 ground barley and 3/4 ground corn which right now is the cleanings from under our batch dryer so there is some red dog in it. When that is used up it will be straight ground shelled corn and barley or I could add some oats. Minerals are fed free choice. The cattle run in an outside cement barnyard with a three sided shed and covered bunk with access to a 3 acre lot to get them off the concrete. Cattle are bred to start calving mid April. Am I going to be shorting the cows on this program? We culled three cows last week and they were all rolling in fat. Yet dad still wants to get more hay into them. I could cut out the grain, but right now it's a good way to clean up under the dryer, although I do have some calves that I can feed the cleanings to as well. I know sometimes it's hard to change after 40 years.......any thoughts? | |
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Brood cow ration question
