Livestock Management RANCHING
Cow Nutrition in Cold, Wet Weather By Gary DiGiuseppe
A
S THE COWS IN YOUR SPRING CALVING HERD ENTER THEIR fi nal trimesters, it’s important to keep one eye on your feed supply and the other on the
weather report. “The cow has it pretty tough during this period of
time,” notes Dr. David Hutcheson, animal nutritionist and consultant with Animal Agricultural Consulting in Scroggins. The harsher weather, he says, “will mainly affect the cow’s dry matter intake. Make sure the cow is consuming enough feed. Give her enough nutrients so she has a normal calf.” Chart 1 demonstrates the cow’s feed needs at different
ambient temperatures along with her actual dry matter intake. Her net energy maintenance (NEM) needs rise sharply as temperatures drop below freezing. Temperatures between 32 and 74.3 degrees Fahren-
heit (F) are “thermal neutral,” but the wind chill also has to be taken into account. That fi gure is derived through a complicated formula and is usually reported by TV and radio meteorologists as the chill factor. For instance, when the ambient temperature is 30 degrees and the wind is 15 miles per hour, the wind chill is 19 degrees.
56 The Cattleman January 2015 Hutcheson says that when the chill factor drops into
the teens, dry matter intake starts to decline. “The chill factor has to be below 32 before you start seeing this stress,” he says, “and around 20 to 22 degrees, you’ll re- ally start seeing some cold stress. The biggest necessity in cow-calf operations east of I-35 is protection during the icy cold weather, with barns and things like that. They handle it very well in the last quarter; they just need to have some feed to keep going.”
Cold, wet and windy make wicked weather During these wintry conditions the cow will need
a supplement in addition to the local hay. Hutcheson says a typical feeding rate would be 2 to 4 pounds a day of a supplement that is approximately 20 percent protein along with a grain component, so it contains both high energy and protein. He says, “You want to keep the intake up and the
cow as comfortable as possible because she’s going to lose heat. Wet weather is more dangerous than just cold weather — windy, wet and cold weather is really the bad part.” During these conditions, the animal’s hair coat is
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