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.