Spot on, a 500kg animal will eat 500kg of DM in between 30 and 50 days depending on various factors (especially pregnancy)
No sirree.
That's probably dead correct, because I don't see concentrate-fed animals down here I didn't consider that when I said it.
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Funny how that can work, "I am the business" is very often the way it is, unnoticed unless you want or are forced off the farm
I do think the "grass grows grass" thing holds much more water (sorry) when you're talking the second half of the growing season and wintertime.
André Voisin had something to say about muzzle breadth I think. IIRC, a cow's grazing time seems to be fairly constant, in order to give adequate time for rumination, so her intake is limited by not only what grass is there (short grass limiting intake rates), but also the harvesting machinery. Wider mouth means fewer mouthfuls per kg fresh material harvested. Ergo, wide mouth good.
Rumination time is something you don’t tend to see mentioned very often. While cows can and do ruminate standing up, their best rumination is when they are comfortable and this includes laying down. I’ve seen times/storms where animal condition was compromised not because they stopped eating or food was an issue, but because they weren’t ruminating sufficiently. In winter here particularly, one of the greatest benefits of adequate bedding is the cattle will use it for a cud chewing base. They lay comfortably and chew.
Yep remember chatting to a friend many years ago about the false economy of keeping cattle too dirty whilst housed from the cudding perspective. Think the dairy boys consider it more with cubicle design etc.
Years ago we had 6 older cows that were a bit lean to spend the winter in the byre, so they were to go in a pen in the shed. They were bedded with fines (sawdust made from waste timber) but after a month we scraped the wet stuff off the top to expose the drier stuff underneath 3 times a week to save on bedding till we hit the floor, then bedded them for a month. We did save on bedding but while on the scrape month the cows ate far more silage and lost weight. They lay down far far less on the scraped month and generally looked poorer. We didn't repeat the scrape month as it was clear that it was false economy. The old saying "a dry bed is half fed" is clearly very true.
Yes, sometimes the bigger picture is to simply observe rather than attempt to manage every tiny detail
A good bed is worth a bucket of grub
Just proves if you stand around too long those bulls will knock you over.
New pair of wellies?
