When It’s Cold, Cows Need More Feed
We think you already know this. But do you have the breakdown of how much more they need depending on the temperature, wind chill, and how wet or dry their coats are?
This comes to us from January of 2018 just after an especially cold winter storm. Thanks to Steve
- Published: 1 year ago on December 16, 2019
- By: Kathy Voth
- Last Modified: December 16, 2019 @ 10:37 am
- Filed Under: The Classic by NatGLC
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Kathy, what would the lower critical temps be for sheep? Wool/hair sheep? Dry/wet coat?
Hmm…I don’t have this information at hand. But I will try to find it for you!
Cows with a heavy winter coat have thermal neutral around 17 degrees.
Agreed, Gene, that my dry cattle are comfortable to the teens with no wind, and are content with their normal stockpile and quality hay.
But the current storm system has them (and me) thoroughly wet. Winds picking up and temps dropping all day. Rain passing through again and more bands to come.
I’m sitting by the wood stove drying out, warming up, and could stand to drop a few lbs. But any cattle weight lost through this storm, by the more timid ones in my herd, it likely won’t be gained back for months.
So the article Kathy posted has pushed me to get back out (between rains), move the polywire again, and feed more hay at the pasture edge. Thankfully the mud will be frozen hard in the morning!
Another strategy to limit heat loss: where possible, allow cattle to seek areas out of the wind, moving a bit if wind shifts during storms. Trees, hollows, ravines, brush, leeward sides of hills, etc. Given the chance, they’ll seek out those spots with the least windchill, the drier places to bed down, and conserve limited body fat.
If I pay attention, they’ll teach me where they want to be in the worst storms of the season. If I plan ahead, can make those available again, and have hay nearby.