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Cattle Diets and Nutrition

Domestic bovines don't eat just grass: the diet of a bovine is surprisingly complex and involved with the variety of feeds in the form of forage, grain and byproducts available. But in order to determine the diet of a bovine one must understand the nutritional aspect of the bovine as well--an aspect that has its complexities and variations as well. If you are looking to learn and ask questions about the diets and nutrition of cattle, you've come to the right place.

500 Questions

What is the difference between the cow and sheep digestive system?

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Asked by Wiki User

sheep are grazers that eat mostly Grass (like Cows)

Goats are browsers that prefer to eat leaves, shrubs, flowers (like deer)

Sheep are also VERY copper sensitive and most can only hande no more than 10ppms of copper in their diet.

however,

Goats need copped in their diet, i think goats need around 30ppms of copper.

How long should a steer live before slaughter?

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Asked by Wiki User

That really depends on how that steer is being finished, what breed it is and how much meat (determined by size of the carcass) you want. There are different breeds that tend to reach carcass maturity a lot later than others, and how that particular steer is finished also affects the rate of finish that steer undergoes. For most steers in the feedlot, they are kept until they are around 18 to 22 months of age upon which time they are slaughtered. On grass, they wouldn't be slaughtered until they reach around 24 to 30 months of age. Steers that are very late maturing (like Jerseys, Holsteins, and Highlands), may not be slaughtered until they're at least 30 months old.

What trees leaves does cow eat?

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Asked by Wiki User

Yes. Grasses are essentially leaves, cows will also eat leaves off of trees and shrubs and eat leaves (as well as the stems) from forbs like alfalfa.

Can cows eat birds?

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Asked by Wiki User

NO. Cows are herbivores, not carnivores.

How are manure manufactured?

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Asked by Wiki User

The green manure crops are grown in field for about 6 to 8 weeks and turned into

flowering state. These crops remain buried for about 1 to 2 months.

these should be completely decomposed before growing next crop.

Why do cows spit out their cud?

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Asked by Wiki User

Spitting out cud is one of the first signs of disease in cattle. It is often indicative of abscesses or bad teeth. It is also associated with diseases such as tick fever and anaplasmosis.

What type of feed do you use for cattle?

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Asked by Wiki User

This depends on what stage of pregnancy they are in and whether they are still suckling a calf or not.

Cows in their first trimester are often still nursing, and still need plenty of good quality feed to keep the milk flowing. However, during this last three months that the calf is on his dam, feed quality of the cow can be progressively decreased because the calf is relying less and less on his dam's milk than he is on other feed sources like the creep feed he's getting prior to being weaned, grass, and hay. When the calves and cows are weaned, the cows should be put on low-quality feed or pasture to help speed the drying up process.

Cows in their 2nd trimester (after weaning) can be put on lower quality feed or pasture during these next three months. During the winter, this is a good time to get them grazing stockpiled grass or swath graze, since the feed at this time is lower quality than what is needed for nursing a calf.

When cows start into their third trimester leading up to calving, feed quality should be gradually increased during these 3 months. If you are still feeding cows on swath grazed fields or stockpiled pastures, you may want to supplement them with better quality hay to help with their increasing nutritional demands during this time. This nutritional incline will continue to climb up until the new calf is around 2 to 3 months of age.

After the calf is born, and the cows are lactating, you will need to feed your cows 50% more than what they eat when not lactating.

How many times does a cow chew its cud?

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Asked by Wiki User

It will take about 62 regurgitation and chewing rotations to fully chew their cud, food is fully digested at about 24 hours.

Can a calf eat grass at two weeks old?

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Asked by Wiki User

No. Their stomachs aren't well developed to consume grass when they are so young. They begin to sample grasses and other stuff Mom eats when they get around a week old. They are fully on grass and other feedstuffs offered to them by the producer by the time they reach between 6 and 8 months of age.

What is grain for cattle?

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Asked by Wiki User

Depends on what the grain is: field corn, field peas, feed barley, wheat, etc. If you're just referring to the word "grain" there really is no special name for such grain that is fed to livestock like cattle...just "grain."

How do cows digest cellulose?

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Asked by Wiki User

Because cattle are ruminants and cellulose is broken down by the microbes found inside of the rumen and then digested further in the cecum. Humans do not have a multiple-chambered stomach nor a functional cecum, thus making digesting cellulose impossible. Cellulose only acts as a gut filler for humans, which is the main reason why plant matter passes through so quickly (in around 2 hours) in a human's digestive tract compared to meat, and compared to the time it takes plant matter to go through a cow's digestive tract.

Do cows eat lavender Is it bad for them?

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Asked by Wiki User

Cows will eat lavender, as no toxic or poisonous effects have been found to affect them in any significant way. However, they may not eat it as readily as a goat might.

Can cows eat too much grass?

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Asked by Wiki User

This is dependent on many factors like the following:

  • Type of bovine (i.e., Beef or Dairy? Lactating or dry? Pregnant or open? Breeding or feeder? Young and growing or old and maintaining weight?)
  • Sex of bovine (i.e., bull or cow, steer or heifer)
  • Body condition of bovine (i.e., thin or fat or normal?)
  • Size and weight of bovine
  • Age of bovine
  • Length of grazing period
  • Pasture quality (i.e., poor or excellent)
  • Moisture content of grass
  • Nutrient quality of grass
  • Soil quality
  • Type of grasses grazed (i.e., tame or native and species)
  • Climate
  • Topography/geological factors
  • Location

For this reason, we cannot answer this question. We can answer how much grass a bovine eats per day (see the related question below), but not how much per year.

However, in an ideal and perfect world, here is an example of how much a cow can eat per year:

One 1000 lb cow (dry, open) is on Meadow-Brome pasture that has an average moisture content of 70%. The average daily consumption of such a cow is 25 lbs of dry matter (DM) per day. And, there are 365 days per year.

Moisture content of grass:

Moisture content = 70%

Dry matter content = 100% - 70% = 30% / 100 = 0.3

Since we already know the daily consumption of the animal, we calculate the as-fed daily consumption value:

Amount of forage consumed per day (lb) on an As-Fed basis = 25 lb/day / 0.3 = 83.333 lb per day

Now we calculate the yearly as-fed consumption value:

83.333 lb per day x 365 days = 30,416.666 lb per year.

Thus, in an ideal world, a cow will consume under 30,500 lbs of grass per year. However this number varies considerably if you take in account all of the factors listed above.

When to put calves on wheat pasture?

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Asked by Wiki User

Cows are not put into wheat pastures. They are fed at the diary with grains and other things.

How do you keep a cow from eating grass on the other side of the fence?

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Asked by Wiki User

Though I will provide somewhat of a "band-aid" solution to the problem, the thing you should know is that this is a sign of poor pasture management. Cows that have enough pasture to graze within the confines of the fence-line will not bother trying to stretch wires or break boards to get at the grass on the other side. If your pastures are grazed to the point where they look like golf greens, you have a big pasture management problem that needs attending to.

Now, the management problem could be either because you have too many animals on your land, or you have no management system in place to allow pastures to rest. However, if you already have a some sort of rotational grazing/management-intensive grazing system in place, the problem may be just in this "sacrifice pasture" you have, and I may be jumping the gun in giving the questioner heck on something he or she is doing right in the first place!

So, what you can do depends on what kind of fence you have. If you got iron panelled fence, I wouldn't worry about it. Iron fencing is strong enough that it won't give away as easily as a 2" x 6" board or wire. If you got board fence, high tensile or barbed wire fencing you may want to do one of two or three things:

1) Run an electric fence that is nose-level with your cattle. Use the electric fence on a problem section of your board or barbed wire fence. With the barbed wire fence, make sure the wire isn't contacting the wire because this could short out the hot-wire and defeat the electric fence's purpose. With the board fence you could nail electric wire insulators to each post. If necessary, put another wire a couple feet off the ground. With the high-tensile fence, it can be electrified so either you have some wires shorting out on something that is not making it more electrified than it should be. Connection with wire from another fence, tall grass, a tree branch, or lack of grounding from your grounding rod are the possibilities of weaker voltage.

2) (This will work also for high-tensile, barbed and board fencing) Run an extra wire or board below the ones that are large enough for a cow's head and neck to squeeze through. Going either along the problem spot or spots may help alleviate the problem.

3) If you are really desperate, or you have an old dilapidated fence that needs replacing, re-wire or re-board the fence so that the wires or boards are closer together preventing the cow to stick her head through. But I wouldn't recommend this since this is much more work than necessary, much more than simply running an electric fence or stringing up extra wire.

How many digestive compartments the cow has?

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Asked by Wiki User

Mouth, esophagus, stomachs (compartments including,rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum) , small intestine, large intestine, cecum, and finally the rectum.

Why can cows survive on grass and not on humans?

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Asked by Wiki User

Yes, and No. Cows can survive completely on grass as food, but it would need water too.

How many cattle did Mission Santa Clara raise?

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Asked by Wiki User

they raised 10,000 cattle

What is the stuff called in a cows stomach?

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Asked by Wiki User

That all depends on what chamber you are referring to! Since a cow has four chambers to its stomach, all four of these chambers look--and even feel--different on the inside. Basically, the inside of the reticulum is a honey-comb structure; the inside of the rumen has papillae, which are similar, but wider and larger, to the villa found in the small intestine, the omasum has many folds covered with villa, and the inside of the abomasum is very smooth, just like the inside lining of our stomach.

Do cows eat goats?

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Asked by Wiki User

yes, a tiger or any other wild animal like lion cheetah can hunt and eat the flesh of cows

Is a cow a consumer or a producer in the food chain?

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Asked by Anonymus186

Cows are at the bottom of the food-chain, since they are herbivores, not carnivores. In contrast, humans would be at the top.