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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.
1,811 Questions
If she has water and salt mineral mix along with her hay, then yes she can. It also depends on the hay quality: if she's fed poor quality or low quality hay, she can eventually starve on it, though it'll take a number of months or so.
What contributed to the end of open-range cattle ranching in the mid-1880s?
The invention of barbed wire ended the open range
Why the diffenence in consistency of poop of cows and horses?
Poop, or feces, is different in different animals because they eat different things and have different digestive systems. In general, animals that mostly or all plant material have more feces than animals that eat other animals.
Cows that eat grass often have runny poop, not quite like diarrhea which is very watery, but more solidified. This is because the grass they eat is more easier for them to digest and utilize than other feeds such as unprocessed grain, which passes through the cow almost whole. Grass contains high levels of protein, which is why their poop is more runnier and makes "patties." Other feeds that have less protein make the poop more solid, almost similar to horse poop. However the runnier feces is easy for insects and microbes to break down, thus making it a good fertilizer.
Horses eat grass as well, but do not have the same digestive system. Since cows are ruminants and have four compartments in their stomach, forage is more efficiently digested than horses. Horses are hind-gut fermentors, in other words they digest their feed in their large cecum (synonomous to human's appendixes). Horses are less efficient at converting feed, though are better at retaining water in their feces than cows or other ruminants. Their poop is large and round, with more grass-material found in their feces than cows, and are often referred to by horse-folk as "road apples." They are often found in heaping piles, and are also great manure to be used as fertilizer.
Deer tend to have smaller and more compact feces, small and round and drier than cows and horses. Deer are ruminants, but are more select grazers than cows, which are "coarse graziers", which simply means they graze on grass more than they browse. Deer tend to browse lots, however they do graze too, but are much more picky about what they eat than cows. The reason they browse explains why their poop is more compact and smaller, much like goats or sheep. Deer make piles too, but not as prominant as horses or cows make them.
Knowing the different kinds of feces, or "scat" is one way to tell what kind of animals have been in a certain area.
What is the name of a cows poo?
Feces from a cow that has a healthy diet will be dark brown and flat, sort of like a thick pancake. Freshly-dropped cow patties are a sickly-green colour, then develop a dark-brown crust as they dry up from the outside in.
What is a feed that is high in grain content for cattle?
On the surface it seems that these two different animals eat the same things. And in a way they do. But cattle need a higher level of protein, especially to make milk for dairy farming. If you feed alfalfa cattle get the first and second cutting of hay. Horses do much better on second and subsequent cuttings. If you feed your horse any grain or all-in-one, make sure it's not too rich for him.
They're big animals, bigger than humans are, so they need the water to be able to function properly. Lactating cows need more water than growing cattle or dry cows because a lot of their bodily fluids and energy are being put into milk production, which gets taken out of their body regularly when being suckled by a calf or milked by a machine. Cows also produce a lot of saliva to chew their cud and be able to swallow coarse plant-matter whole without choking (something we humans are incapable of doing), so plenty of water is a must. Water is also a crucial nutrient to a cow's diet, and just like if not able to eat, will die if it is not there for them to consume and use.
If you want a baseline as to how much a bovine typically drinks per day, it's typically 10% of its body weight per day. Lactating cows may drink one or two percent more, and dairy cows will always drink more water than beef cows, as far as actual volume is concerned versus percentage. Growing cattle also drink half as much as mature cows do, and bulls a little more to about the same as a dry or lactating cow.
Are mushrooms under cow poop poisonous?
The ones that make you trip(halucenate) there the best ones safe to eat don't eat when wet or molded the will leave u severly I'll and possibly die dry them out a dehumidifier is good them eatt them about and 8th of an ounce is good for one person all night
Absolutely! Where cactus is plentiful, the thorns can be burned off with a propane torch (pear burner) for a supplemental winter feed. Cattle also tend to eat cactus during periods of drought, but once they acquire a taste for it, they will eat it any time, thorns and all! This can cause problems, since the thorns can irritate the mouth so much that they have trouble eating anything else.
it depends if you feed it to them straight out of your hand, or if you mix it in with their water or food. if you try to feed it to them right out of your hand, then most likely they will not take it, but if you mix it with their food or water, then they will eat it.
When do cows start eating food?
A newborn calf must be up and suckling within an hour after it is born. This is important because it needs colostrum in order to survive and decrease its chances of getting sick should any pathogens happen by, thereby decrease its chance of dying at a young age from illness.
Will a cow die if they eat to much grain?
Only if they eat too much of it, just like if they eat too much grain in one sitting. Bread is a good substitute for grain for getting cattle to increase in weight, but it is of higher energy than grain and needs to be fed at a limited amount so that animals won't die of bloat or acidosis from eating too much bread.
Grass, no doubt about it. If cattle where given a choice of hay, silage, grain or grass, they would go for grass. They might go for the grain if they learned to like it, but if not, grass is the top favorite food of any bovine.
How much grain should a 1000 lb cow eat in a day?
If you are feeding up this "cow" for slaughter, then it should get around 20 to 25 lbs per day, along with hay and/or grass.
What would you feed a lactating cow?
Farmers feed cows a variety of things,
- Fresh water must always be available
- Grass-not nessecarily fed by the farmer, typically a farmer lets a cow roam in a pasture where it eats what it choses-like alfalfa,plian grass, clovers and whatever else is in the field.
- Hay or/and Silage- a mixture of dried grasses and legumes.-For when a pasture isn't available
- Grains-provides great protein
For a more detailed answer, please see the related question below.
They bend their heads down to the grass, open their mouths, curl their tongues around a sward of grass and pull it in their mouths, then bite down making a little sideways head motion to shear the grass off with their lower incisors, then swallow.
There was no cabbage. There was a chicken. And, look! he's crossing the road.
Or...
He ate the cabbage to get a-head.
Get it? Ahead, a-head?
Give it a minute, you'll catch on.
How many cows are in a feedlot?
Depends on the age, frame size and weight of these "cows." Most steers and heifers finish at around 1400 lbs.
Why do cows get fat if they only eat grass?
There are a lot of factors that come into play: nutrient quality of the grasses, forage conversion ability of the cow, climate, topography, soil, type of grasses being grazed, time of year, stage of grass growth, stage of life cycle of cow (pregnant and dry, pregnant and lactating, lactating), age of cow, etc. Putting all those factors together, cattle can get fat on grass because that grass contains most of the necessary nutrients (except for water and some minerals that needs to be supplied by a separate mineral supplement) that the microbes in the cows' rumens need to feed the cow and maintain her health and well-being. Grass that is growing often contains enough protein, energy, calcium, phosphorus and other nutrients to feed the microbes which feed the cow and which puts weight on a cow.
However, cattle who are on grass all the time aren'tnecessarilyfat. Since they tend to live to eat instead of eating to live, the energy, protein and other nutrients in the grass that the cattle don't need right away are simply stored as fat. The other thing that makes cows look "fat" on grass is how big their bellies get when on grass. This is simply the case of the rumen being large enough to digest all that roughage being eaten, which is a fairly good indicator of forage conversion ability.
Grass quality is the determinant of a cow's ability to gain or maintain her weight. Higher quality in grasses is needed for lactating cows with calves, as well as first-calf heifers and growing steers and bulls. The more marginal quality grasses are suitable for dry pregnant cows, since these grasses don't put more weight on the cows, nor does it make them loose it.
It should be interesting to note that not all cows get fat on grass. Dairy cows such as Holsteins or Jerseys that are raised predominantly in a confined feeding operation and selected to gain weight or milk readily on pre-determined rations that are fed to them often will lose condition or starve to death on grass that is considered by beef producers to be "good quality." Genetics plays a big role in a cow's ability to "do well" on grass. Thus if dairy cows are taken straight off a "factory farm" and put on grass and expected to do well on it--or better on it than what they were raised on in the conditions they were so "cruelly" kept in--it would come to a huge and very saddening surprise to find that those dairy cows will need to be heavily supplemented with grain or other high-quality feed otherwise they will literally starve to death.
What is the proper amount of hay per day to feed a cow during the winter?
This is a loaded question because it depends on a number of factors, namely:
- Cow body weight
- Body condition score (is she thin, fat, or has moderate fat covering)
- Reproductive status (lactating? pregnant & what stage of pregnancy?)
- Breed type (Angus or British cross, Simmental/dairy-type?)
- Temperature and wind
- Coat condition (dry clean, muddy, or snow covered)
- Hay quality (protein and TDN levels?)
So, to get things rolling the best thing to do is provide an example cow to give an example winter ration using hay.
Let's say this is a 1400 lb dry, bred cow in mid-pregnancy. It's January 15th and current air temperatures are sitting at -20ºC; last month was the same, and she has a winter coat on that's clean and dry. She has a moderate body condition score of 5 (out of a scale of 1 to 9, with a BCS of 1 being truly emaciated), so she's in good condition. She's sitting where she needs at least 7 to 8% protein. She's an Angus-Simmental cross, with most of her breeding as Angus. (What bull she's bred to has no influence on her nutritional requirements.) The hay is good quality grass hay, tested at around 9% protein and with a TDN value of 60%. Dry matter content is 18%.
Since she's at 1400 lbs, she's expected to eat, at the minimum, 30 pounds of hay per day. At the most, she'll consume around 35 to 38 pounds per day, as dry matter ration. So, according to my calculations, the proper amount to feed her per day is around 35 pounds per day. She'll be getting enough protein from the hay alone so there's no need to worry about feeding extra grain until she calves and is lactating. A lactating beef cow will need 11% protein or more, so bringing the hay down by only two or three pounds and adding ~5 pounds of barley or oats will be enough to give her enough protein and energy for milk production.
The reason I added those seven factors was that each of these factors will influence how much a cow will eat per day. Here's how:
- Cow body weight: A big cow will eat more than a small cow. Both will have the same requirements in terms of body weight at 2 to 3% body weight in dry matter ration per day, but the amounts will change. For example, a 1000 pound cow eating 2.5% of her body weight per day will consume 25 pounds of DM ration daily minimum, whereas a 1400 pound cow will consume 35 pounds of DM ration daily minimum. (DM = dry matter = all water removed) The same rests with comparing a mature cow to a growing yearling calf: The cow will eat more.
- Body condition score (is she thin, fat, or has moderate fat covering): A thin cow will need to eat more than a cow in moderate condition or that is fat. This is because her metabolism is increased to compensate for changes in temperature. A thin cow is more sensitive to temperature than a fat cow is, so if it gets colder, she needs to eat more to gather enough energy to keep warm and to maintain herself. Better quality feed needs to be given to thin cows also so they gain weight.
- Reproductive status (lactating? pregnant & what stage of pregnancy?): A lactating cow needs more feed (and better quality) than a dry, pregnant cow because she's feeding both herself and her suckling calf. Her nutritional needs are also increased; where a dry cow in mid-pregnancy only needs a minimum of 7% protein, a lactating cow requires 11% protein or more. Energy needs also increases in a similar manner. Nutrition needs peak for lactating cows when they reach about the 3rd month of lactation post-calving.
- Breed type (Angus or British cross, Simmental/dairy-type?): Typically British and Continental breeds, except Simmental, are less demanding for nutrition than Simmentals and dairy-type cattle. Dairy-type cattle like Holsteins and Jerseys need more higher-protein and higher-energy feeds to meet their increased metabolisms. We can see an increase in requirements between the two groups by as much as 10%.
- Environmental temperature and wind: The colder the temperature, the more a cow will eat to produce enough heat via their rumens to keep warm. Cold stress is a threat in winter time, so cows will need more energy and more feed when temperatures dip below their lower threshold limit of -20ºC (assuming they're in good condition). Wind chill can really cause problems, and also play a role in feed consumption; the more the wind blows, the more feed they'll eat and more energy they'll need to keep warm. A good rule of thumb to remember is that for every drop in 10 degrees below -20ºC, add 2 pounds of grain to their current ration. A lactating cow in cold weather will need 40 to 60% more energy in cold weather than a dry, pregnant cow.
- Coat condition (dry clean, muddy, or snow covered): In the case of winter time, a cow with snow-covered and wet coat or matted and muddy coat will eat more and need more in terms of energy and somewhat protein than a cow with a dry-clean coat. A cow out in the cold that still has her summer coat on will also be needing to eat more and have increased energy requirements. Winter coats provide some protection from the elements, so long as they're dry and clean. Highland and Galloway cattle have a bigger advantage over Angus or Hereford cattle because they have heavier, denser coats, thus require less feed and less energy. Skin thickness has no effect on nutrient requirements in cold weather.
- Hay quality (protein and TDN levels): Generally, the poorer the hay, the less of it a cow will eat, without an added protein supplement. This is because the lowered protein content slows the rate of digestion which will make a cow feel full more often. The microbes in the rumen have a tougher time breaking down the feed, meaning they take longer to break down the feed with less protein coming from that feed. The opposite is true with better quality hay. This is why protein and/or grain supplementation is important for times when cows need them most.
How many intestines does a cow have?
Two. (They are attached at the ileum).
The intestines are the portion of the digestive tract between stomach and the anus. They are divided into two major sections: small intestine and large intestine.
The small intestine averages 20 feet long. It is coiled in the center of the abdominal cavity. It is divided into 3 sections: upper, jejunum, and ileum. The lining of the small intestine secretes a hormone called secretin, which causes the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes.
The large intestine is wider but is only about 5 ft. long. The large intestine is divided into 6 parts: cecum, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon, and rectum.
Do cows eat rocks to help with digestion?
No. Cows are not birds, they are mammals, they do not have a gizzard to store rocks in to help digest their food.
You are probably thinking of a trough (pronounced "troff") or feed bunk or bale feeders. Cattle that are corraled in a drylot will eat out of feed bunks and/or bale feeders, as well as drink out of a water trough, be it an automatic waterer or one that has to be refilled with the hose daily. Out in their more natural habitat where grass grows thick from the earth, they graze from the ground, and get their water either from the waterer back home or from a water pump connected to a large dugout or slough.
