Think of a cow’s nutritional needs according to her place in the cycle.

Feed is both a principal cost and a principal factor in reproductive performance. This relationship dictates the fundamental goal of cowherd nutrition programs—achieving an optimal reproductive rate for cows.

A challenge of feeding beef cows is that their nutritional requirements change dramatically during the year based on their BCS, size, pregnancy, lactation status and environmental conditions. Because of these stages, it is common to divide the cow year into four periods.

Period 1, nursing cow. She needs to get bred; her nutrient requirements will be the greatest in this period.

Period 2, cow bred and lactating. At this point, pregnancy demands are small, and peak milk is past.

Period 3, mid-gestation. At this point, the calf is weaned; this is usually the period with the lowest nutrient requirements and a prime opportunity to increase cow BCS.

Period 4, 2 to 3 months prior to calving; during this time fetal growth rate is at its highest and the cow should be in adequate flesh. Having cows underfed in period 4 can result in lighter calf birth weights, lower calf survival, lower milk production, lower calf growth and delayed estrus—which translates to later calving next year and lower weaning weights.

As cow weight increases, the nutritional requirement for energy and protein increases. BCS has gained considerable favor because it has been demonstrated that reproduction in beef cows is greatly influenced by body fatness. The goal should be to have cows calve in good body condition and avoid significant loss in condition between calving and the start of the breeding season.

Milk production places tremendous demands on cows. Peak milk usually occurs by 60 to 80 days after calving which is right before the breeding season. The nutrients spent on milk production means high-producing cows tend to get pulled down physically, which will make it more likely that she will breed later in the season. Feeding thin, high-producing cows more feed prior to reaching peak milk tends to cause them to milk more rather than to gain weight.

The age of the animal influences nutritional requirements: a young cow is still growing. Most cows found open are 2- and 3-year-olds. Young cows should be gaining about half a pound per day. If these young cows fail to rebreed, it is an indication that feeding was inadequate to the animal’s maintenance, growth and milk production nutrient requirements. If possible, young cows along with old or thin cows, should be separated and fed a more dense diet than mature cows.

Winter feeding guidelines
Quality and quantity of forage available are the major factors influencing intake. Intake is probably most influenced by the quality of forage with intake decreasing dramatically as quality decreases. When forage quality is low or average, forage intake is increased with protein supplementation but not with energy supplementation. This increase in intake caused by adequate protein supplementation, coupled with maintenance of forage digestibility, means that the total daily energy status of the cow is increased. This is a win-win situation. If protein is adequate, cows will consume about 1.8 percent of their bodyweight as forage dry matter (less if they are fat, more if they are thin). Usually energy is the most commonly deficient nutrient in beef cow diets, but protein often represents the largest out-ofpocket expense. Proper protein supplementation of poor quality forages will increase forage intake. Increased forage intake meets the cow additional energy intake. Thus, to maximize profitability, it is essential to optimize protein supplementation. Inadequate dietary protein results in low forage intake and digestibility, resulting in much poorer performance. If you are feeding hay, budget at least 2 percent of body weight as hay DM per head per day.

Mineral supplementation calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and salt are often fed as the macro minerals. Cattle on a plant-based diet will always be sodium short, and they are likely to be calcium short unless there are legumes in the forage. Phosphorous will be short in dormant-mature forages, but may be adequate in young forage. You should supplement with magnesium in the early spring to prevent grass tetany, especially on cool-season forages such as fescue and wheat pasture. Supplementation should be started about three weeks prior to initiation of grazing. The recommended intake of magnesium can be achieved by feeding Ricochet mineral all the time or Hi-Mag or Mag-ADE meal. Ca, P, Mg, and salt are required at significant amounts and are major considerations in diet formulation.

When evaluating cow herd feeding programs, bear in mind that a high percentage of problems with poor reproduction and low weaning weights can be directly attributed to inadequate energy, protein feeding or both. This is much more common and likely than vitamin or mineral deficiencies. First verify energy and protein feeding, then evaluate vitamins and minerals.

Manage scouring calves with electrolytes

When calves get scours, they may get dehydrated and experience electrolyte loss. As a result, the calf’s risk of death increases, which would be a major loss in this market environment. Because of this, oral electrolyte solutions designed to counter these effects are an important way to keep calves going.

A good electrolyte solution will replace lost fluids and restore the calf’s acid/base balance. It will also supply nutrients and energy to the animal. When considering if a particular electrolyte solution is right for your calves, there are a number of things to keep in mind.

First, oral electrolyte solutions must have an alkalinizing agent to reverses the acidosis caused by the acid/base imbalance that comes from scours. For years, bicarbonate has been effectively used to achieve this goal.

New research has shown however, that using acetate or propionate as the alkalinizing agents in electrolyte solution may provide improvements over bicarbonate. Acetate and propionate produce energy when they are digested, they also promote water and sodium absorption in the calf’s intestine—bicarbonate does not do these things.

Additionally, oral electrolyte solutions containing bicarbonate can potentially raise the pH level in the calf’s abomasum. This higher pH level can promote the growth of salmonella and other bacteria and may sometimes result in worse scouring. Using acetate- or propionate-based electrolyte solutions helps prevent increases of abomasal pH. That seems to be its edge to bicarbonate as an alkalinizing agent in electrolyte solutions.

In order to replace lost electrolytes, oral solutions should contain sodium and potassium. Moreover, look for a product that provides glucose and glycine. In addition to providing energy, these ingredients will help promote absorption of water and sodium from the intestine.

Some oral electrolytes contain dietary fiber, usually psyllium. This is the same stuff as in Metamucil.  These products will thicken the calf’s manure and make it look like the diarrhea is improving. However, this addition of fiber will cause less glucose absorption and can lead to reduced energy levels for calf. This range of fiber may even cause prolonged scouring. For scouring calves, I don’t recommend using oral electrolytes containing dietary fiber.

While using electrolyte solution, you should provide the nutrients and fluids found in the calf’s normal diet. This means you should continue to feed milk or milk replacer. If you starve a calf, it will quit scouring because it has nothing left in its digestive tract. However, there is no proven benefit to removing milk or milk replacer from a calf’s diet. My reading of the research indicates that pulling the milk or milk replacer will worsen the calf’s negative energy balance. Its prognosis will be worse off for it. If you pull milk replacer when your calves are scouring, you are making a mistake. While milk or replacer should continue to be fed, electrolytes and milk or milk replacer should not be fed at the same time. It is best to add the oral electrolyte solution as a separate meal between regular milk or milk replacer feedings. For example, if you feed milk in the morning and evening, you could administer an oral electrolyte during the middle of the day and again late at night.

Beyond providing milk and electrolyte, be sure to have free-choice water available to the calves at all times.

While oral feeding solutions are very useful, it is important to know when other interventions are called for. Calves that cannot lift their heads or stand may need intravenous fluids. Work with your veterinarian, ASM or calf specialist to choose the product most suited to the particular situation you are dealing with.

Aside from scouring calves, it is sometimes necessary to deliver electrolytes for other reasons. Electrolytes can alleviate the effects of hot weather on calves and can be used to combat dehydration that may occur during stressful times (weaning, pen moves, de-horning/castration and transport). In these situations, offer the electrolyte solution free-choice along with water, or feed it during every other water feeding. If calves are not scouring but you want to offer them electrolytes to help combat stress or reduce shrink, use a diluted solution of electrolytes. A good starting point is about a third to half the amount of powder you would use on scouring calves.

Dr. Jim White is the Director of Nutrition at MFA Incorporated. Questions? Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Plan for lambing and kidding success

Lambing and kidding season can drive a flock or herd’s long-term success. The health, growth and early performance of a newborn determines the number of feeders for marketing and the quality of future replacements. With so much riding on this season, be sure to plan in advance to provide optimal care to your next crop of lambs or kids.

Set goals
Before the first newborn hits the ground, analyze past flock or herd performance and set goals. Setting tangible goals and determining a path for achieving these objectives can help you build on past performance.
Consider the following goals:
200 percent lamb or kid crop: Mature and well-conditioned ewes and does should be able to care for at least two lambs or kids. To achieve this goal, extra lambs and kids (triples and quads) and those from younger or under-conditioned ewes or does may be better cared for separately.

Less than 5 percent pre-weaning mortality: The industry target for pre-weaning mortality is less than 5 percent. However, it’s estimated that nearly 20 percent of lambs die before weaning, with 80 percent of those losses occurring during the first 10 days. Similar estimates are in place for kid goats.

Create a colostrum feeding strategy
Colostrum, or the first milk of the ewe or doe, is the first protection newborns receive against environmental pathogens and bacteria; however, not all ewes and does are able to produce the quality or quantity of colostrum required for early protection.

Test quality of colostrum with a colostrometer and monitor the amount of colostrum consumed. Provide colostrum at a rate of at least 10 percent of a newborn’s body weight by 18 hours of age. Serum immunoglobulin levels should be above 10 mg/ml.

Keep a colostrum replacer on hand during lambing and kidding season in case ewes and does are unable to produce the necessary colostrum. Colostrum replacers are one way to reduce variation in quality and provide proven protection to newborns. If feeding a colostrum replacer, select one that is formulated and USDA-approved (to prevent failure of passive transfer) specifically for lambs and kid goats.

Determine which newborns should be fed milk replacer
Feeding a milk replacer can help provide consistent nutrition to the entire crop, especially those that the ewe or doe is unable to care for. The option also allows dairy producers to market ewe’s and doe’s milk.

Determine which lambs and kids should be fed milk replacer as soon as possible, considering the following newborns which require additional care:
•    Lambs and kids on dairy operations
•    Orphan lambs and kids
•    Weak lambs and kids unable to nurse
•    Unclaimed newborns
•    Third and fourth newborns in sets of triplets or quadruplets
•    Weaker or smaller lamb or kid of twins
•    One of the twins from a ewe or doe lambing at less than 1 year of age

Select a species-specific milk replacer
Research milk replacer options and select a milk replacer formulated specifically for sheep or goats. Lambs and goats require different nutrient levels than other livestock, so milk replacers created for other species may not provide adequate nutrition.

For example, the fat content of sheep and goat milk is much higher than cow’s and the lactose content is lower. Selecting a milk replacer that provides these higher nutrient levels can better help newborns meet their full potential.

In fact, research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Spooner Agricultural Research Station has shown that successfully raising lambs on milk replacer can increase the net return per ewe for the flock due to increased growth rates compared to sheep milk and non-sheep milk replacers.

In research trials, kids raised on Doe’s Match Premium Blend kid milk replacer gained quicker and cost about $0.16 less per pound of gain than those raised on goat’s milk. Kids also experienced similar growth rates and less scours that those raised on goat’s milk.

To best match the nutrients in ewe’s milk, select a lamb milk replacer with an enhanced fatty acid profile and a balance of 25 percent protein and 30 percent fat. The ingredient Digestarom has also been shown to positively support gut health.

For kid goats, select a milk replacer with 25 percent protein and 28 percent fat along with the Architect Formulation System.

Assist and monitor lambs and kids from birth through weaning
Create a schedule for newborn management. Consider the following steps and tips when raising young lambs:
•    Provide an adequate quantity of colostrum to newborns as soon after birth as possible.
•    Remove newborns from sight or hearing distance of ewe as soon as possible after birth.
•    Provide a warm, dry, draft-free place to start nursing lambs and kids.
•    Assist newborns in nursing for the first few feedings as needed.
•    Avoid placing younger lambs and kids with older livestock. Older lambs and kids tend to push smaller lambs and kids away from feeding.
•    Hang a light over the milk replacer self-feeding devices for added visibility and warmth.
•    Start lambs and kids on high-quality starter feed at 2 weeks of age and provide ample high quality clean, fresh water supply at all times.
•    Wean at 30 days or 25 pounds of weight when lambs and kids have begun to eat starter feed routinely. At weaning time, each lamb or kid should have consumed at least 20-25 pounds of species-specific milk replacer powder.

Tom Earleywine is director of nutritional services, Land O’Lakes Animal Milk Products This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For more information on lamb and kid goat nutrition and management, visit www.lolmilkreplacer.com

A forage test is necessary to determine supplement needs

Unless you are my spouse, spending money isn’t always fun. But sometimes, spending some money now can help you save more in the future. This is true when it comes to the cost of testing stored forages such as hay and silage. A good forage test will cost around $40 to $160 but is worth it in the long run.

Why should you bother having a hay test done? Because if you don’t know what you are feeding, you are guessing, and it is very likely that you will guess wrong.

It is valuable to know the quality of your forage. Of course you should visually inspect the hay for mold, foreign objects and weeds, but in order to really determine hay’s quality, send a sample to the lab. Hay quality really can’t be determined just from looking at it. Often, hay that doesn’t look so good may actually test rather well, while hay that looks outstanding can test low.

One possible result of feeding low quality of hay is that you watch cows munch away and lose body condition until it’s time to rescue them with supplements. I’ve seen it often: if you don’t know the quality of your hay, it is very easy to make costly/money wasting feeding and supplementation decisions.

On the other side, knowing forage quality can help you prevent over-supplementing. It is expensive to supplement more than necessary. In certain instances, especially in dry cows, hay may be enough to meet protein and energy requirements. In other instances, it may be sufficient to supplement by feeding 2 pounds of a 20-percent cube per day. For example, let’s say the hay looks questionable, but is good enough quality to allow supplementing with MFA Breeder cubes that come in at about $0.45 per head per day. That could keep the cow in the same condition as feeding 3 or 4 pounds a day of MFA Super Cattle Cubes costing about $0.64 to $0.85 pounds per day. The savings achieved from reducing supplement needed per day can quickly add up and can be substantial. But you can’t be sure without the hay test, and it’s your herd’s fertility on the line.

Indeed, knowing forage quality can help you prevent reductions in performance. If the hay is of lower quality than anticipated, and not enough supplement is fed, problems may arise. If feed quality is not good enough to achieve or maintain desired body condition scores, pregnancy rates will decrease. A forage test will give you the information you need to know to prevent this. While it will cost more to supplement the appropriate amount if hay quality is found to be lower than expected, the extra cost in supplement is economically much better than having dramatically fewer calves next year.

People sometimes dismiss the need to test forage quality because they are planning on feeding it all anyway. Even if you’re planning on feeding all your hay, it is still beneficial to know the quality of it. If the quality of hay is unknown, you may end up feeding your best hay to dry cows. If you do, it can cost you. And, it may be difficult to supplement the lactating cows enough to make up for the remaining lower-quality hay. Matching hay quality to animal requirements will reduce the cost of supplementing.

To aid in making cost-efficient decisions, hay should be sampled and analyzed properly. Each load or cutting of hay should be tested. To sample, use a forage probe and collect samples from at least a 10th of the bales in the load. These samples can then be combined and sent to the lab.

A common mistake is only being interested in the protein content of sampled hay. However, protein content is only slightly correlated with energy content. For example, hay that is rained on when it is in the windrow will often have higher protein concentrations than non-rained on hay, because some highly digestible soluble carbohydrates are washed out of it. Protein is not the only measure you should look for. At the very least, forages should be tested to determine crude protein, and to get a good estimate of energy, TDN. Crude protein is straightforward to measure and results typically are consistent between labs. In contrast, TDN is not directly measurable and the equations used to calculate it and the methods for fiber used to get the fiber values will differ by labs. The energy values are calculated from principally the fiber values: acid detergent, neutral detergent—but the fat, non-fiber carbohydrates and protein contents also influence energy values.