What kind of hay do cows eat?

Answer 1

Because they'd have nothing else to eat. Cows have to eat all the time, no matter what season they're in. Hay is better for their digestive systems than grain is, since hay is simply dried legumes and grass that has been cut and harvested by man. Hay is only fed when cows cannot graze on pasture, especially in the winter and early spring when the grass is too short to be eaten.

Answer 2

Fibre is necessary in their diets because it helps optimize perfornance of the ruminant animal by conveniently slowing down passage rate and digestive rate. A producer wants to optimize the performance of the rumen, never maximize it. If you maximize performance you risk killing the animal. Maximizing performance is for monogastrics like pigs, chickens and even humans (to some degree, such as for athletes at the Olympics).

Too much fibre can be bad for a cow, as can too little. When you feed a cow a diet that is really, really high in fibre and really, really low in protein, energy and other essential nutrients, you essentially will starve her to death on a full belly. The way that works is that a cow will eat all she wants of this high-fibre low-other-nutrient feedstuff, but she will get nothing from it; she'll get impacted (and even constipated) because the digestive rate has slowed down to nearly a stop. It's also possible to say, to some degree, that rumen microbial populations will begin to die off because of the lack of nutrients available. As a result, the cow begins to live off the stored tissues in her body until she can't use them anymore.

Too little fibre, as in 100% grain diets or diets where cattle are fed only high-concentrate feeds that are extremely high in starches and proteins and very low to no fibre, will also quickly kill a cow. Such diets are really high in energy, and the bacteria that readily consume such nutrients release organic acids, such as lactic acid, into the rumen decreasing the pH to a very low and highly acidic state. Such a change happens quite suddenly, and this change is called Acidosis in veterinary medical literature. Acidosis, in its acute stages, will take a cow's life in quicker time than a person can react to try to save her, because of the way that the high acidity can cause toxicity in her system, causing lethargicisty, grey-foamy diarrhea, a disinterest in eating, and eventually death.

Answer 3

Grass hay, legume hay, or grass-legume mix hay. They can also be fed straw, so long it is a little greener than "regular" straw and contains a bit more nutrient in it than "normal" straw.

Answer 4

Cows are referred to as "roughage consumers" which means they are adapted to eat grasses, but not foliage like goats.