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| Seeing some of the bale feeders recently posted got me thinking about tooth loss in cows. Only have one low loss bale feeder now, its like the square one down the page but homemade. It is an obvious hay saver, probably saves about 10% of the bale compared to other rings or 15%+ of unrolling.
Question is, do these feeders cause cows to lose teeth earlier than otherwise?
When hay is loose on the ground its easy for them to pick up. In the other rings, they can butt it about to loosen it from the bale and not have to work too hard with their mouths. In these though, the bale stays in a tight core, they have to pinch a bit with their teeth and pull it out a bit at a time. I know when I grab a handful of hay in a bale I have to pull pretty hard to get it out. I know this breaks teeth off, I find quite a few every winter.
The gain in feeding efficiency is easy to see. I wonder if there could be a way to quantify the loss of longevity of your cows do to these feeders? Maybe they were going to lose those teeth a few weeks later anyhow and it doesn't really matter at all.
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Low loss bale feeders and cow teeth
