Planning dinner is my least favorite part of the day sometimes, and it truly makes me wish I were a cow. Yes, I said a COW – you didn’t read that incorrectly. It would be a luxury to have my meals calculated for my tastes and nutritional and caloric needs, adjusted for the season of the year, and delivered ready to eat.
Dairy Cow’s Diet, or “Rations”
- A dairy cow’s diet isn’t just grain; that would be like saying people eat only meat and potatoes – it would be incredibly boring but also nutritionally deficient.
- A cow needs a variety of feed components to ensure she remains healthy and can produce a strong calf and top-quality milk.
- Her rations need to be adjusted according to her age and the stage of her breeding/milking cycle:
- Young heifers need good nutrition just like growing teenagers, with age-appropriate calories and protein to ensure steady growth for the future “girls in the barn.”
- After a cow gives birth, she needs special nutrition to regain her strength and body condition, just like every new mom.
Did You Know
- Dairy cows’ daily diets are planned by a nutritionist who is familiar with the characteristics of each cow on the dairy and knows exactly how much protein and fiber (“forage” in farmer lingo) she needs, as well as which types of minerals and vitamins.
- Dairy cows often eat as much as 100 pounds of rations a day, made up of a balanced combination of forage, grain, mineral supplements and protein-rich feeds such as soybean meal.
- Forage is the basis for a cow’s diet. This includes pasture grass in the spring and summer months, or it can be chopped grass (silage).
- Farmers cut silage during the summer when grass is at its prime quality, then they ferment it to lock in the nutrient content.
- Silage can be chopped rye grass, green corn stalks, sorghum grasses, wheat, coastal Bermuda grasses, Sudan hay and other high-nutrient grasses.
Every bite of feed a cow gets is analyzed for nutrients such as calcium, fiber, protein, phosphorus, several vitamins and sodium, plus a long list of other critical nutrients.
I wish I had someone to take care of all that nutritional analysis for me, bring dinner right to my table and then wash the dishes afterward. I can’t think of anything better!