😂 🤴🏼 🥋 Fresh food for cows. The amount of feed per cow 👨🏻‍🎨 🚴🏼 🥕

Today, many farmers are breeding cattle. This is not a simple business, which requires certain knowledge and skills. In order for the animals to be in perfect order, they need proper care, otherwise you can lose the whole herd. The health and productivity of cattle is directly dependent on the quality of its feeding. Only with a full and balanced diet can a farmer consistently receive good milk yield, and the animal will continuously add to its body weight. Feed standards for cows in modern animal husbandry state that daily cattle should receive all the necessary nutrients and in sufficient quantities. However, an important role here is played by the cost of food, as well as their consumption. Only following all these requirements, you will be able to get the maximum product with minimal financial investment.

To date, a huge number of dietary supplements are on sale. Therefore, it is very difficult to choose a universal option that combines good features and affordable cost. This is especially true for those farmers who are just starting to engage in animal husbandry. Let's try to figure out what kind of food a cow needs so that she grows healthy, quickly gains weight and gives as large milk yield as possible.

General Information on Food Additives

As with any other animals, cattle require a varied and nutritious diet for normal livelihoods. Animals cannot live on green grass in summer and hay in winter. They will gradually languish, continuously losing weight, and the amount of milk given will begin to decrease gradually. Experienced cattle breeders argue that several types of feed should be used at once, which can provide animals with vitamins, minerals, nutrients and vitality.

Depending on the composition and origin, all food additives are divided into the following varieties:

animals;
vegetable;
combined;
mineral and vitamin supplements.

The main component of the diet of cattle are foods of plant origin.

This cow food can be of the following types:

Juicy. They are the best source of protein and fiber, so it is most often used for feeding almost throughout the year. This category includes green grass, silage, as well as horticultural crops.
Concentrated. They contain a large amount of carbohydrates, so they are used to supplement the accumulated proteins. These include grain, Makukha, bran, meal and others.
Rude. This includes hay and straw. These products contain vitamins and minerals, so they are used to feed animals in the winter, when the possibility of free walking is impossible.

Animal feed for a cow is meat and fish waste left after the production of various food products. In addition, bone meal, which is the best source of calcium, is also included here, so it is added to other food additives to replenish the amount of minerals and macronutrients in the animal body.

Diet adjustment based on seasonal factors

When choosing food for a cow for a year, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the characteristics of feeding vary depending on the time of year. The thing is that in different seasons the need for cattle in vitamins and nutrients changes. In addition, those feeds that are abundant in spring and summer are simply not available in winter. Therefore, farmers should take this into account when planning the daily menu for their wards.

Feeding in the winter

This is worth dwelling in more detail. In the cold season, all pastures and meadows are littered with snow, so animals cannot eat grass, as happens in the summer. Based on this, certain adjustments must be made to the diet. Most farmers most often use coarse and succulent feed for cows in the winter. The best option would be hay harvested in the summer, silage and some root crops.

A mandatory component is also concentrated nutritional supplements. Their daily norm for adults is about 11 kilograms. However, so that the food is properly absorbed and does not cause any problems with the functioning of the digestive system, it should not be given immediately, but divided into 4-6 receptions. Silo is recommended to be mixed with hay in equal proportions to increase its nutritional value. At the same time, it is advisable to change the type of this feed every month so that the cattle do not have an upset stomach.

The daily feed of a cow in winter is calculated individually based on several factors. The main ones are the type of cattle and the amount of milk given per day.

On average, at a time, an animal should receive:

root crops - 3 kg;
pulp - 1 kg;
nutritional supplements - 1.3 kg.

To diversify the winter food of a cow, it is necessary to periodically replace the silo with hay. It is best to harvest it from alfalfa, because this herb is not only rich in a huge amount of nutrients, but also stimulates the formation of milk, so you can get great milk yield.

So that coarse feeds are better absorbed, they are pre-crushed and poured with warm water. Then they add concentrated nutritional supplements, grated root vegetables, salt and fodder yeast. A similar composition is rich in vitamins, minerals and nutrients necessary for the normal functioning of cows and their high productivity.

Summer feeding

So what do you need to know about this? In the warm season, when everything around is blooming and fragrant, there are no special problems with feeding cattle. In spring and summer there is the possibility of free grazing. And on the pastures, succulent cow food is abundant. With green grass and young tree branches, animals get a huge amount of protein, fiber and vitamins. However, in order for the livestock to adapt normally to the new diet, it is necessary to transfer it to walking gradually. First, the herd is released for several hours, and then gradually the duration of the walks increases.

Along the way, the amount of feed per cow, which was used for feeding in the winter, is reduced. However, it is not recommended to completely exclude concentrated nutritional supplements, since in this case milk yield can be drastically reduced. Grain, the amount of which is calculated individually, will help to prevent this, depending on the milk supplied by the animals.

It should be noted that in addition to the diet, much attention should be paid to the water balance, since milk formation depends on it to a large extent. Therefore, do not forget to take the wards to a watering place. And provide them a fresh drink in the stable.

Destination-specific feeding

According to the basic rules and animal husbandry techniques, the diet for cattle is planned not only depending on seasonality, but also taking into account the specific goals for which it is bred. For example, to obtain milk, the composition of the feed for the cows must be one, and the amount of food additives for growing animals for meat should be different. This also applies to the feeding regimen. This will be discussed in more detail below.

Breeding cows for milk

This aspect should be given special attention. When choosing food for cows for milk, it is necessary to take into account the weight and general condition of an individual. This is the only way to satisfy the daily need of each animal. If you are guided by a common approach, then one part of the livestock can be malnourished, and the other, on the contrary, can overeat. It is also important to take into account the fact that the process of milk formation is very costly in terms of financial investments, since the purchase of additional food additives is required. When calculating the optimal amount of food, you must be guided by the following rule: 0.3 feed units containing at least 45 grams of protein per 1 liter of milk given.

Based on this, the optimal daily diet will look like this:

straw - 2.7 kilograms for every 100 kg of cow weight;
root crops - 2.5 kg per liter of milk;
concentrated nutritional supplements - 150 g per liter of nutrient fluid;
salt - 5 grams per centner of live weight.

In the summer, the main component is the succulent feed of cows, which animals receive on the lawns during free walking. If the summer was dry and the grass is very small, then various top dressings are introduced into the diet.

Highly productive breeds should be fed at least 4 times a day. For cows with average milk yields, 3 meals will be enough.

In this case, feed is given in the following sequence:

concentrates;
juicy;
rude.

It is worth noting that it is forbidden to use fresh feed for cows. Due to a deficiency of salt in the body of animals, the water balance is disturbed, which significantly worsens the process of milk formation. Therefore, it is mandatory to add sodium chloride to food.

Cattle fattening for slaughter

What you need to know about this? When breeding bulls in order to obtain meat, certain features should also be taken into account when drawing up a nutrition program. In this case, the diet should begin to be planned when the animals are still at a young age.

As for the feeding program, it is carried out in three stages:

Preparatory. On it, young growth is actively growing and developing, so it requires a large amount of vitamins and minerals. The main feed for the cow is hay, boiled potatoes, green plants that animals find during grazing. In order for calves to actively gain muscle mass, it is very important to give them silage.
The main one. It is completely identical to that described above, therefore the diet does not undergo any special changes.
The final one. At this stage, the daily norm of food is gradually reduced. The main types of feed are concentrates and fresh plants, which contain a large amount of moisture.

According to experienced breeders, for cattle to gain muscle mass, which is extremely necessary when breeding it for the purpose of subsequent slaughter, animals need to receive a sufficient amount of nutrients. Therefore, it is required to organize full-fledged, balanced and three meals a day for calves. In this case, food intake should be carried out at the same time. In order not to violate the regimen, it is recommended to draw up a feeding schedule. After the calves have matured, they begin to give granular feed to cows, designed for fattening meat breeds.

Dry Feeding

It is very important to choose the best food for cows during pregnancy, because not only the health of the mother, but also her baby depends on the quality of food. Therefore, when compiling a diet, you need to consider many nuances. The animal stops giving milk shortly before the alleged calving. This period is the final phase of pregnancy. In order for the birth to pass normally, individuals require vital energy, so it must gain at least 900 grams of live weight daily. However, according to many experienced farmers, achieving such results is very difficult because the cow's physiological needs are constantly changing.

To simplify your task, you can conditionally divide the period into two phases.

When drawing up the menu for the first one and a half months of the dry period, the following rules must be adhered to:

the main part of the diet is hay harvested from cereal plants;
concentrated feed completely stop giving;
if instead of gaining weight the animal loses weight, then a plentiful amount of silage is included in the diet;
all foods that contain calcium are also excluded from the diet.

The second phase falls on the last 2-3 weeks of carrying a calf. She assumes feeding according to the following scheme:

the basis of the daily diet is straw and silage;
concentrates act as additional food additives. Their minimum daily rate is 3 kilograms;
shortly before calving, they start giving diet foods with a high protein content;
per 1 kg of food should be at least 8 grams of calcium and 4.5 grams of phosphorus.

Some livestock professionals also recommend giving fresh cow food several weeks before calving.

Highly productive breeds

Representatives of this species of cows are distinguished by the fact that in their body metabolic processes are accelerated compared to ordinary cattle species. Therefore, it is very important to provide them with a complete diet rich in nutrients.

For this, the daily nutrition of animals should look like this:

proteins and carbohydrates - 50%;
proteins - 25%;
vitamins and macronutrients - 25%.

If you do not adhere to such a scheme, then the amount of milk given can be very much reduced. The main feed for the cow, which is a representative of a highly productive breed, is straw, fresh herbs, silage. Root crops and concentrates act as secondary food additives. However, the latter cannot exceed 25 percent of the total daily diet. In addition, feeding should be 3-4 times in accordance with the established regime.

Feeding to increase milk yield

Many beginner farmers are interested in the question of what kind of food a cow needs so that she gives as much milk as possible. As mentioned earlier, cattle productivity directly depends on the quality of its diet. Therefore, by making certain adjustments to the animal menu, you can increase milk yield many times over.

When planning on cattle breeding and purchasing a certain number of goals for divorce, you need to worry about stocking up hay for the winter. In this case, proceed from the fact that it should be at least 20 percent of the total diet. In addition, vegetable production, such as beets and carrots, has a positive effect on milk production. They also significantly increase the taste of a nutritious product. As for purchased concentrated food additives, they also contribute to good milk yield, but milk from them loses part of its properties. To increase animal productivity without compromising product quality, brewer's yeast, animal feed and bran can be included in the diet.

Feeding recently calving cows

Childbirth is a real test for any living organism, which greatly depletes it. Therefore, after calving, animals should provide a special diet. It is best to give fresh straw, as well as special talkers made from wheat bran and oats. Coarse feed is given in an amount that the cow is able to eat. But the concentrates are reduced almost twice.

It is also very important to ensure that the woman in labor has a sufficient amount of fresh drink, since milk formation is highly dependent on maintaining the water balance. If calving took place in the summer, then a few days after it, animals are allowed to give green dressing, rich in vitamins and minerals. It is recommended to place a salt lick in one of the corners.

Cooking at home

This question is of interest to many farmers. If you are breeding cattle, then it is not necessary to buy compound feeds, since you can cook them yourself. This is not difficult to do and you do not have to look for any special ingredients. All that is required is to mix some components in certain proportions.

So, how to make cow food at home? Here is one of the best recipes for feed with high nutritional value and energy value:

corn - 16%;
oats - 25%;
wheat bran - 15%;
Makukha - 20%;
bone meal - 5%;
fodder yeast - 5%;
sugar - 10%;
salt - 1%;
premix - 2%.

Such combined feed contains in sufficient quantities all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients necessary for high cattle productivity. , .

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Conclusion

So the article on the proper feeding of cattle came to its end. It described in detail all the nuances that should be considered when drawing up a diet for cows, taking into account the specific goals of their breeding, seasonal factors and other nuances. If you adhere to all the tips and recommendations, you can achieve high productivity from your livestock. And not only pay back the invested financial resources, but also make a decent profit. At the same time, all your efforts will not be in vain, and you will receive great pleasure from your occupation.

Fresh food for cows. The amount of feed per cow