Contents
How much hay a cow needs for the winter depends on its quality, the type of grass cut and the animal’s appetite. All living organisms have a different metabolism, and the need for food is also different. Roughage can be nutritious or “empty”. The amount of food that a particular animal needs, each owner will have to set independently. But there are average values that can be taken as a starting point.
Types of hay for cattle
The division of roughage into species now occurs almost on an arbitrary basis. Traditionally, they were divided according to the composition of herbs. Now you can find a division according to the level of moisture or nutritional value. Which method to choose when dividing hay into species depends on current priorities.
The composition of hay can be forbs or sowing. These two groups are divided into smaller categories. Forbs – “wild” herbs. It can be:
- Mountain, collected in the area of the belt of alpine meadows. Considered one of the best.
- From water meadows, floodplains of rivers that are flooded in high water.
- Forest, collected from the edges of the forest.
- Swamp, harvested in very humid places.
The latter is considered the least nutritious. Moreover, poisonous horsetail often comes across in such hay.
Horsetail is found everywhere among wild grasses, but prefers moist soil.
Sowing can be:
- legumes;
- cereals;
- legume-cereal;
- herbs from specially selected plants.
The latter is optimal in terms of composition and nutritional value.
When buying roughage, you need to pay attention to humidity. Under-dried hay will rot, over-dried hay will crumble. The owner will lose a lot when the dust will fall on the floor and dust. The division of hay by moisture:
- Dry, humidity 15%. Hard to the touch, it cracks when compressed and breaks easily.
- Normal, 17% moisture. Soft, rustling when squeezed. When twisted into a bundle, it withstands 20-30 turns.
- Moist, 18-20%. Soft, easily folds into a tourniquet and withstands repeated twisting. There is no sound when compressed. You can feel a coolness when you touch it with your hand inside the roll.
- Raw, humidity 22-27%. With strong twisting, liquid is released.
The last two categories cannot be stored for the winter. The only exception is haylage harvested using a special technology. But this type requires sealed packaging. Animals should eat the printed roll in 1-2 days.
For the winter you need to store the first two categories. And the best hay with a moisture content of 17%. It should also be taken into account that the humidity characteristics are also average. “Stick” hay with large lignified stems of plants cracks even at above average humidity. And small-stemmed and consisting of leaves “does not sound” even at humidity below 15%. The same applies to fracture toughness. Large hard stems break more easily than thin and soft ones.
Another division into categories is made according to nutritional value. The calculation is made in feed units, which contains 1 kg of hay:
- meadow herbs 0,45 feed. units;
- legume – 0,5.
The nutritional value of cereal hay depends on the time it is harvested. If the stems are mowed after grain ripening, this is already straw with low nutritional value. But grasses cut during the period of milky ripeness are considered one of the best types of hay. In addition, it is always necessary to take into account the content of calcium, phosphorus, protein and other elements in roughage.
Legumes are considered one of the most nutritious foods, but can cause stomach fermentation.
motley grass
Can be wild and sown. The first is harvested by simply mowing free meadows and glades. For the second, specially selected varieties of grasses are sown on the field. But you should not count on the purchase of sowing forbs. If they do this, it is for their own needs. It is easier to plant a monoculture for sale, which is easier to process and protect from pests.
Plus “wild” forbs in a large species composition, providing a complete set of vitamins. But he is also a minus, since no one can say which herbs predominate in such hay. Often there are poisonous plants in it. A cow can eat some of them in small quantities, the poison from others accumulates gradually, but is not excreted from the body.
Nutritional and mineral composition can also vary greatly. 0,46 feed units is a very average estimate. “Alpine” has a high nutritional value and a rich vitamin and mineral composition. Its opposite, marsh, is poor in vitamins and minerals. Nutrition is also well below average. Reeds, reeds and horsetails are plants that need to be fed only in a hopeless situation. The cow herself will not eat them if she has a choice. And this greatly increases the real consumption of hay in winter.
Sowing forbs
If the owner is puzzled by sowing herbs for the winter, seeds are usually used for this:
- timothy;
- chaff many-flowered;
- ryegrass;
- hedgehogs;
- bluegrass.
Preference is given to those plant species that are adapted to the climatic conditions of the region. In the south, these herbs may also contain wild barley. He is not planted, he grows on his own. Its presence in hay is undesirable, since wild barley seeds can cause stomatitis.
In the southern regions, wild barley is reasonably considered a malicious weed; it is suitable for cow feed only until ears appear.
Cereal
Oats are usually planted on cereal hay. It grows well even in poor soils. But you need to mow oats in the degree of “milky maturity” of the grains. If you remove the cereal later, the stems will turn into a malnourishing and tasteless straw. Hay made from still green oats is one of the most nutritious varieties.
In addition to oats, grasses related to bluegrass are planted: wheatgrass, fescue, bonfire, aka rump, Sudanese grass, millet, timothy grass, and other types of bluegrass.
Almost all of these plants are malnourishable when mature. When harvesting for the winter, they need to be mowed immediately after flowering or during it.
legume
This type of hay is considered the most nutritious, as it contains a large percentage of protein. But the fields are usually sown with monocultures. The exception is legume-cereal hay, consisting of a mixture of oats and peas. In other cases, it is more profitable to sow one type of annual or perennial grasses.
Due to the scarcity of the composition, bean hay is not balanced in terms of nutrients and the cow’s diet in winter needs to be adjusted with vitamin and mineral premixes. For harvesting this variety of roughage, vetch, sweet clover, peas, sainfoin, various types of alfalfa, and clover are used.
All these herbs need to be mowed during the formation of buds. The exception is clover. Here, clover straw, which remains after the plant has been threshed for seeds, is often used as livestock feed. This straw is rough to the touch, but contains enough protein and calcium to replace hay.
Wild alfalfa is not usually cultivated specifically, but it is often found in meadow forbs.
How to calculate how much hay a cow needs
The daily norm of hay for a cow depends on:
- animal weight;
- saw hay;
- seasons of the year;
- feed quality.
Calculating how many kilograms of hay per day you need per cow is easy. But then the annual fascinating “quest” begins, which is called “find out how much hay you need to buy for the winter.”
The cow should receive the amount of nutrients and vitamins that are in high-quality, completely eaten hay. Such an ideal is almost unattainable. For some reason, many purveyors believe that cattle will even chew logs. As a result, hay can be “sticky” – very rough, thick stems of overripe plants. Mowed grass once caught in the rain – minus half of the vitamins. Overdried under the sun – the nutritional value of hay has decreased.
Under-dried, rolled grass begins to “burn” inside. If there is a lot of moisture left in the hay, the roll begins to rot from the inside or “dust” by the middle of winter. And this “dust” is actually mold spores. Such hay is poisonous in large quantities, and it has to be washed, removing vitamins along the way.
If the hay has low nutritional value, the cow will eat more hay than normal. If the food is “stick”, there will be a lot of waste, but this does not mean that the animal is full. On the contrary, it remained hungry and did not receive the required amount of nutrients. Legumes are very rich in protein and it is better not to abuse them during the dry period.
Quality alfalfa that is rarely sold
Rules for calculating hay per 1 head of cattle
Calculating the norm by weight is easy. The average weight of an adult cow is usually taken as 500 kg. Bulls can reach 900 kg or more. Animals can be weighed on special livestock scales. If this is not possible, the live weight of the cow is calculated by the formula: multiply the girth of the chest by the oblique length of the body, divide by 100 and multiply the result by K.
K is a floating factor. For dairy breeds, its value is 2, for beef cattle – 2,5.
The formula is intended for adult animals that have completed the development of the skeleton.
The average norm of hay for a dairy cow is 4 kilograms for every 100 kg of live weight. In the dry period, the rate is increased by reducing concentrates and succulent feed. In lactation, they return to the previous level, since hay has little effect on the amount of milk, but allows the animal to receive the necessary minerals and vitamins.
In bulls, the norm of hay is the same as in dairy cows. In the breeding season, producers increase the percentage of protein in the diet. This is often achieved by introducing meat, blood or meat and bone meal as an additive.
For queens of meat breeds, the norm is the same as for dairy breeds. For fattening bulls, you can reduce the amount of roughage to 3 kg, but then you need to increase the concentrates.
But, given that the quality and varieties of hay, as well as the metabolism of animals often vary greatly, the norms are determined empirically. Taking average standards as a basis, they look at how the animal reacts. If it tries to gnaw trees and eat sawdust, the hay rate should be increased. If you get fat, remove the concentrates.
Per day
A 500-kilogram cow per day needs to eat 20 kg of hay. Cattle grow up to 4-5 years, so young heifers and heifers need less feed. At the same time, it is difficult to calculate with the necessary accuracy how many “grams” need to be added monthly. Yes, and you don’t have to. Usually take a heifer weight of 300-450 kg, depending on the breed.
Feed loss can be reduced by making feeders for cows
For the winter
The estimated amount of hay for the winter depends on the length of the stall period. More precisely, even on how long a cow can find food on the pasture. Usually 6 months are taken for the “winter” period. This is also an average. In the southern regions, the grass appears earlier, fades later. But in summer there can be a dry period, which is almost no different from winter. The grass burns out and the cow needs to be fed a full ration of hay again.
In the northern regions, the growing season starts late and ends early. The “winter period” can last more than 7 months. It is necessary to calculate the required amount of hay based on specific conditions.
If we take the average value, then for the winter you need to stock up at least 3650 kg of hay. But it is dangerous to take strictly under the calculation. Possible loss or late spring. At the end of winter, it is no longer possible to buy more hay or its price is very high. You need to take from 4 tons.
Such a picture can be observed at the end of winter if the bales were stacked not on pallets, but directly on the ground or concrete floor.
In year
You can calculate how much hay a cow needs for a year without even using a calculator. It is enough to multiply 365 days by 20. You get 7300 kg or 7,3 tons. In summer, the need for hay is less than in winter, as the cow eats fresh grass. But 10 kg per day will be required. Considering that much is likely to be thrown away, this amount may even be small.
Features of feeding cattle with hay in winter
In winter, cows do not have grazing, so it is necessary to supplement the “naked” concentrated hay diet with succulent feed. But it must be borne in mind that a cow can live on roughage, although it will be impossible to get milk or meat from such an animal. But on some grain and succulent fodder, diseases of the digestive tract are provided to livestock. Therefore, the basis of the diet in winter is hay.
Bulls can be given roughage 2 times a day: in the morning and in the evening. Heifers and pregnant cows should be given hay 3 times a day. You can break the daily rate into 4 cottages, if an early calving is expected. The fetus in the second half of pregnancy puts pressure on the cow’s stomach, and she cannot eat as much feed at a time as after the birth of a calf.
In the form of a cut, cows even eat “sticks”. Such a fine hay fraction is easier for animals to digest. It can be mixed with compound feed avoiding timpani due to grain fermentation. Juicy feed is also given along with hay. For the same reason, to avoid fermentation.
Since animals usually choose what tastes best first, all feeds must be mixed with hay chaff. Such a simple trick will “force” the cow to eat all the feed, and not just tidbits.
Conclusion
How much hay a cow needs for the winter, one way or another, each owner will have to decide on their own. With improper storage, 10 tons may not be enough. But you should always take it with a small margin. Even if the hay is of perfect quality and keeps well, the following year may not be a good harvest. Then last year’s stocks will help provide the animals with the necessary amount of feed.