Feeding oats whole to cattle

Full of bull(s)

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Yorkshire
I am feeding moistened urea treated oats to cattle 6-18 months old. I know many feed them dry whole to young cattle fine as they cud more, when I feed them they are about 19% moisture. I wondered yesterday as my mill broke down would older cattle process them ok if instead of rolling, I soaked them again overnight and fed them at say 30%. Has anyone tried it?
 

Agrivator

Member
They will do fine fed whole. It just isn't worth the bother of rolling oats to end class of cattle or sheep.

Most folk who processed cereals came out of the mill with grey hair - until they washed it and found it was still brown or black.
 

Full of bull(s)

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Yorkshire
They will do fine fed whole. It just isn't worth the bother of rolling oats to end class of cattle or sheep.

Most folk who processed cereals came out of the mill with grey hair - until they washed it and found it was still brown or black.
I found fed whole when dry once they hit about nine months a lot started to go straight through them that’s what got me thinking if they were very soft almost like green whole crop it might stop it or the majority anyway
 
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JoeMixedFarm

New Member
Yes. And don't be influenced by the sight of whole oats in the dung. They are only a small proportion of the number of whole oats in the diet - perhaps only about 1 or 2 %. It gives the birds something to peck at, and at one time the house pig. :)
Do you think I would need to add another source of protein or would oats be enough?
 

Agrivator

Member
Do you think I would need to add another source of protein or would oats be enough?
The calves would certainly benefit from the addition of protein, to bring the mix up to about 17% crude protein on a Dry Matter basis. Presumably a local feed merchant will stock a suitable protein pellet with added minerals.
 
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Timbo

Member
Location
Gods County
I am feeding moistened urea treated oats to cattle 6-18 months old. I know many feed them dry whole to young cattle fine as they cud more, when I feed them they are about 19% moisture. I wondered yesterday as my mill broke down would older cattle process them ok if instead of rolling, I soaked them again overnight and fed them at say 30%. Has anyone tried it?

We don't mill our oats as part an ad lib diet either.
 

Full of bull(s)

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Yorkshire
They will do fine fed whole. It just isn't worth the bother of rolling oats to end class of cattle or sheep.

Most folk who processed cereals came out of the mill with grey hair - until they washed it and found it was still brown or black.
Well I tried and failed. They were testing at about 18% after treatment, so I added another 100kg of water per tonne first time. Didn’t really soften much, and anything over about 8 months old there was a lot of whole ones passing through. Next batch added 200kg/tonne in theory upping the moisture to 38%. Softened them but the bigger cattle you could count 30-40 whole grains in a pat. Too many for me. The urea treatment also makes the hull more digestible so I can’t work it out
 

Agrivator

Member
Well I tried and failed. They were testing at about 18% after treatment, so I added another 100kg of water per tonne first time. Didn’t really soften much, and anything over about 8 months old there was a lot of whole ones passing through. Next batch added 200kg/tonne in theory upping the moisture to 38%. Softened them but the bigger cattle you could count 30-40 whole grains in a pat. Too many for me. The urea treatment also makes the hull more digestible so I can’t work it out
1000 grains of oats weigh about 33gms. So a kg of oats contains about 30,000 grains.

If you feed your cows 2kg of oats, they consume 60,000 grains.

If they dung 6 times daily and each pat contains 35 whole grains, that comes to 210 grains passing through.

210/60,000 is 0.35%

And the 0.35% either feeds the birds, or it goes back on the land. So I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 

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