Hello All

I change mine at least once a month. For bred cows & heifers their nutritional requirements change a bit for each extra month that they are pregnant & then a lot at post calving. I balance them once a month for the calves & feeders too as they are growing & their nutritional requirements change as they grow. Going from Feb. 28 to March 1, they didn't do all their growing overnight, but during the whole month. So for the first part of the month, in my head I will cut back on the ingredients, say 10% & see how they clean it up. Usually by mid month they will get the ration that I balanced & at the end of the month I'll be giving that loader buck of silage a little extra shake to add about 10% over what I had balanced as they are cleaning everything up a little bit too early in the day before the next feeding. Taking the temperature into consideration, I'll usually do 2 rations for each. Say in Jan., I'll do 1 at -20° C & 1 at -30° C & then I might do some changing in my head as the temperatures change. This year it has been real easy because it has just been so cold all the time without any major temperature swings & haven't had to do any adjusting on the fly watching the thermometer.

I guess if a guy was really ambitious & wanted to to take it to the "nth" degree & micro- manage his feeding, he could balance them every day, taking animal growth & weather factors into considerations.