Proper cattle feeding is sometimes overwhelming, even as an experienced grazier. After all, to plan for adequate nutrition while staying within your cattle feed budget can seem like a challenging task. This especially applies if you don’t yet practise rotational grazing or utilise farm management software to manage feeding on your cattle farm.
High-quality cattle livestock feed is essential to being a successful grazier. The health, productivity, and profitability of cattle farming largely depend on the quality and suitability of the food you provide for your dairy or beef cows.
In this post, we will discuss a broad range of cattle feed topics while also touching upon a sustainable cattle feeding strategy – rotational grazing.
Reviewing Cattle Feed Fundamentals
As an experienced grazier, feeding cattle is not a new concept for you. However, a refresher of the fundamentals will actually help you to take your cattle feeding strategy to the next level.
Reviewing the basics is particularly helpful if you are keen to learn about grazing strategies. This is because it will enable you to compare and contrast the approaches to livestock feed before you embark on a new feeding plan.
What Constitutes Ideal Feed for Cows?
As an alternative to traditional feed options, pasture grazing (specifically rotational grazing) stands out as a sustainable and cost-effective approach to ensuring the health and well-being of your livestock. Regardless, the different breed and age of cattle impacts their needs significantly.
For example, the best dairy cattle feed will require a high-energy diet to help produce milk, while roughage-based diets would be best for beef cattle. Calves, cows, bulls, and heifers also have unique nutritional needs.
Types of Cattle Feed
Feeding cattle grain is a common practice. However, it’s helpful to review the various types of cattle feed and the cattle feed ingredients to balance the nutritional needs of your livestock:
- Grain-based feed: Cereal grains such as wheat, barley, and corn. It’s high in starch and used for a quick energy source. This is not part of a cow’s natural diet and is often used for finishing.
- Grass and grain mix: A combination of grass and grain for balancing diet and seasonal needs.
- Cattle feed supplements: Often available in different forms, such as liquid concentrates and dry pellets. These are best for providing necessary protein, minerals, and vitamins.
- Pasture: Grass and cover crops! Another cost-effective feed for livestock, as it is what cows' stomachs are naturally designed to digest.
- Dried hay or silage: This is a cost-effective, nutrient-dense form of fodder. Common types include bales of hay made from grasses, legumes like alfalfa (lucern hay), or cereal grain straw. It provides the necessary nutrients when the pasture is not healthy or growing, such as during the winter season or droughts.
- Concentrates: Liquid feed for cattle includes concentrated cattle feed like oats, corn, wheat, barley, grain sorghum, and liquid supplements. This is often used for providing nutrients and keeping fibre low.
- Roughage source: Feeding cattle cornstalk bales and cracked corn are common ways graziers include roughage sources for beef cattle. It's widely incorporated for providing energy and digestible fibres.
- Sweet feed: Containing mixtures of grains and molasses, sweet feed for cattle is often used to provide energy and palatability.
Providing Adequate Nutrition
Now, depending on different factors, you will need to provide adequate nutrition. When there is inadequate nutrition, there’s a higher chance of seeing bloat, grass tetany (related to low magnesium levels), white muscle disease, milk fever, and general mineral-deficiency illnesses in your cattle.
Other factors such as age, sex, and environmental conditions are essential to determining the adequate nutrition for cattle feed. Younger cattle (including calves) need higher protein intakes to support growth, while mature cows need a maintenance diet, which should vary depending on their weight and environmental conditions.
This nutritional guidance table provides guidance for various factors.
Cattle Feed Budgeting
Depending on how much and what your cattle needs, budgeting will be the next factor for determining the ideal cattle feed. Fortunately, you can easily estimate and stay within budget.
Here are some tips:
- Create a balanced ration.
- Assign cattle feed prices on the established rations.
- Determine the required feed amount for the timeframe.
- Add in other costs, such as fuel or trucking rates, water, electricity, maintenance, and additional cattle feeding panels, fencing, or buildings.
Once you have these basic costs, you can start plugging them into some resources online:
- Free cattle feed rations calculators or software that helps you budget cattle feed.
- Other cattle feeding spreadsheets are also available to estimate budgets for different types of cattle livestock feed.
While you may have already invested in cattle feeding equipment or bulk cattle feed to keep costs low, you can still run a financially rewarding cattle farm operation by switching to rotational grazing. This grazing strategy encourages a natural diet for your cattle while supporting biodiversity, soil health and resiliency to changing weather patterns.
Factors Influencing Feed Choices for Cattle
Various factors, including grazing patterns and the environmental impact, influence feed choices. A fundamental cost analysis of different feed options helps farmers make informed decisions.
Some producers use a combination of several approaches:
- Utilising tools like feed nutrient comparison calculators
- Using bulk feed evaluations with a Feed System Analysis Spreadsheet (FSAS)
- Referring to budget and cost-effectiveness studies
- Implementing feed budgeting
Your choice to implement rotational grazing depends on resources, cattle needs, and environmental considerations. However, we advocate for rotational grazing whenever your land and location can sustainably support it.
MaiaGrazing’s team can evaluate your farm’s suitability for rotational grazing and its software platform will help you manage grazing practices.
Best Practices for Implementing Feed Plans
Seasonal Adjustments
Graziers must adapt their feed strategies based on seasonal changes, managing feed during droughts or periods of abundance. For example, cattle feeding in winter or dry seasons could be challenging yet critical.
Drought-affected vegetation can lead to nutritional deficiencies and forage quality decline, leaving your land vulnerable to invasive plants and toxicity risks.
Some tips to manage feed effectively during these times include:
- Adding supplementation with hay bales
- Feed testing for nutritional profile and potential toxins
- Ration balancing by using portion-controlled automatic cattle feeders
Balancing Grazing and Supplementary Feeding
A balanced approach to combining grazing with supplementary feeding is an important strategy to ensure adequate cattle feed all year round. This balance is pivotal to prevent overfeeding, which can lead to obesity and related health issues.
On the other hand, underfeeding results in malnutrition and decreased productivity.
Additionally, low-quality feed is a significant concern, as it will adversely impact cattle health. When the quality is low, you will see reduced milk production, decreased fertility, and poor growth rates.
In worst-case scenarios, there will be increased health risks, including diseases and reduced conception rates.
Evaluating Livestock Feed Quality and Sources
Assessing Feed Quality
Therefore, assessing feed quality is essential. Assessing involves testing methods like nutritional analysis, visual inspections, and using nutrient calculators.
Use visual inspections for mould and texture changes (caking or clumping), in combination, use odour identifications (musty, sour, or unusual rancid smells) to quickly identify spoiling.
Identifying signs of spoiled or contaminated feed, such as mould in the cattle feed trough and the cattle feed tubs, is fundamental. Although a visual indicator of mould growth doesn't mean mycotoxin is present, it is a good sign to look for the cause of mould.
In addition to visual assessment, send feed samples to commercial labs regularly for mould count and identification. Because there isn't mould in the feed bins for cattle, it doesn't mean there are no mycotoxins.
Choosing Reliable Feed Suppliers
Choosing reliable feed suppliers is equally important. However, we are all concerned about the cost that comes with quality. To ensure you are selecting a reliable feed supplier while keeping costs relatively low, look for these factors:
- Product quality and safety: Quality control and adherence to ethical and environmental standards
- Dependability and reliability: Dependable product availability, consistency, and on-time delivery
- Compliance and certifications: Meets industry standards and regulations
- Business trustworthiness: Provides a transparent pricing structure, payment terms, and cost-effectiveness.
Create vendor assessment criteria to rank suppliers on these aspects. Keep a record of delivery time, pricing, and product quality so you can continuously decide on the most reliable supplier while keeping costs under control.
Innovative Approaches and Emerging Trends
Technological Advancements in Feed Production
Technological advancements are revolutionising feed production and preservation, improving feed quality and efficiency. Most innovations are focusing on advancing these trends:
- Automation, traceability, and energy savings
- Energy efficiency and sustainability to reduce CO2 emissions
- Quality control and feed safety
- Data analytics and digital tools for promoting informed decisions
Sustainable and Organic Feed Options
With the growing trend towards sustainable and organic feed options, there are multiple options for cattle feed. Feeding cattle seaweed, cottonseed, and wheat are all creative options to reduce methane emissions, increase fibre intake, and keep feed costs low.
Some other eco-friendly feed alternatives include fish and other animals:
- Plant proteins and oils
- Insects
- Algae
- Lab-grown and cultured proteins
- DDGS and NovaPro
- Local and seasonal vegetables
In addition, the demand for organic feed for cattle in Australia is increasing because of the desire to ensure the health and well-being of the livestock. Organic feed providers adhere strongly to strict standards prohibiting GMOs and synthetic chemicals.
To meet the demand for organic feed for cattle, producers, and graziers in Australia explore options with certified feed suppliers such as:
- Australian Organic feeds
- Aus Organic Feeds
- New Country Organics
However, at the end of the day, letting cattle graze pastures as their main food supply is the most natural way to feed cattle. What’s more, the financial benefits of rotational grazing tend to outweigh the investment.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Handling Feed-Related Health Problems
Handling feed-related health problems involves addressing issues caused by poor feed quality and taking preventative measures against common feed-related illnesses.
When addressing your cattle, look for feed-quality-related health issues such as weight loss, digestive issues, and changes in behaviour. Once health issues are suspected, seek a veterinarian to conduct a thorough health assessment.
To prevent feed-related illnesses, continuously store food properly, improve the quality of the feed, and constantly monitor for unusual behavioural changes or weight loss. Keeping a tidy cattle feed bunk, the feeder trough for cattle, and the hay feeder for cattle will prevent unwanted moisture and possible infection.
Overcoming Feed Shortages
Whether it's seasonal or economical, shortages can happen. During cattle feed shortages, you can still maintain the health and productivity of the cattle with similar tactics for seasonal shortages:
- Substitute feed ingredients with cereals or bales of hay
- Using alternative feeding programs
- Enhancing pasture productivity and extending the grazing season
Understanding cattle feed basics is vital for the health and productivity of cattle. It involves careful consideration of nutritional needs, cost, environmental impact, and seasonal variations.
Fortunately, numerous tools and tips exist for implementing best practices, assessing feed, embracing innovative approaches, and effectively troubleshooting common issues.
Improve Your Livestock Feeding Strategy, Starting Today.
Enhance your livestock feed and cattle feed management practices by incorporating tools such as MaiaGrazing.
MaiaGrazing is grazing management software that not only simplifies the creation of grazing plans but also empowers you to budget cattle feed and forecast different scenarios, mitigating the risk of overgrazing. The MaiaGrazing mobile app complements your efforts by offering a photo capture feature.
This feature allows you to visually document and analyse your pastures over time. This photographic evidence serves as a compelling testament to your improved livestock feed management or prompts adjustments if patterns of overgrazing emerge.
With MaiaGrazing, you can confidently make informed decisions that contribute to the financial success of your farming venture while promoting sustainable feeding practices for the resiliency of your land.
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