Piecing the Puzzle Together to Get the Cows Fed

By Katie VanValin

I like to think about feeding the cowherd like a puzzle. The puzzle pieces are things like stage of production, performance goals, available (and economical) feed ingredients, labor resources, equipment, and even the time of year. As a nutritionist, I could take any number of feed ingredients and piece together a ration, but if it doesn’t fit with the other pieces of the puzzle, it will not benefit the producer or their cattle.

Whether you are starting from scratch and just getting into the cattle business, or perhaps you’ve been at this for quite some time, I think it is essential to evaluate the puzzle every once in a while. Is there a more manageable, or perhaps better way to solve the puzzle? When we start thinking about a small part of our operation, like feeding the cows as just one piece of the larger puzzle, we start moving to a more holistic or systems approach.

Let me give an example of what I am talking about here. In my example, we have about 200 fall calving cows that calve from late August through October. During calving, cows graze cool-season pastures and eventually move to hay and a supplement to meet the lactating cows’ energy and protein requirements. There is limited opportunity to stockpile fescue for later grazing in this system. We also have somewhat limited hay ground available but can feed corn silage. So, from January to march, the cows (and their calves) receive corn silage with some added protein, which must be fed 7-days a week. Once the silage runs out, we move back to a hay-based system until grass is available in the spring. This system doesn’t sound too bad at face value, and I suspect that this hypothetical producer can maintain adequate body condition on the cows and wean a pretty good calf in the spring.

However, if we take a step back and start digging in a litter deeper, some changes could be made using existing pieces that might make this system work with fewer “puzzle pieces” (think supplemental feed and added inputs). What if we fed the most energy-dense feed (corn silage) to cows when they had the greatest energy demand (early lactation)? Now corn silage is provided during the fall instead of winter. The producer and the cows can work with mother nature (and her mud) instead of against her. Another bonus is the opportunity to stockpile fescue that can be strip grazed after feeding corn silage. The herd will still need hay to carry them through to spring. However, the amount of hay required decreased with the addition of stockpiled fescue. Furthermore, supplement costs may also be decreased since now cows are being supplemented to meet lower energy and protein requirements.

I always say there is no one size fits all approach to cattle production, and your puzzle most likely does not need to look just like your neighbors. So I’ll leave you with a challenge to take some time and think about whether your puzzle pieces are working to their greatest potential to meet the goals of your cow herd.