Feeding Cows on a Micro Dairy

Reader Contribution by Steve Judge
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There are two ways to manage your cow-feed regimen — for maximum milk production or to ensure that your cows live a long, happy and healthy life. Thus, the cow management goals for a micro dairy can be very different from the goals on a large commercial dairy. Large operations usually feed their cows a diet designed to fully utilize the cow’s genetic capacity to produce milk.

This strategy is good if your goal is more cheap milk, but it is hard on the cows and keeps them on the verge of metabolic collapse. This is why the average lifespan of a cow on a commercial dairy farm is only four and a half years.

As you might know by now, I don’t feed my cows to maximize their milk production.  Rather, my primary goal is to keep my animals healthy, clean and in good condition on the theory that healthy cows produce a healthy amount of milk.  Does this make sense from a business perspective?  It does for me. A healthy cow can easily live to the ripe, old age of 15.  In fact, the oldest cow I milked was 17 years old before I retired her.  I was able to enjoy a return on my investment in raising her for 12 ½ years longer than the average commercial dairy cow.

I am often asked if I feed my cows grain. Yes, I do. I feed them grain with their hay and baleage. Again, this is because my goal is to maximize the cow’s health and lifespan, not her milk production. I carefully considered feeding a grain-free diet but decided against it.  You see, modern dairy cows have been bred for generations to produce way more milk than they would for their calves in a “state of nature”. They are not “natural” critters. As a result, most lactating cows will burn their body fat and tissue to make milk if their feed is not supplemented with some sort of concentrated feed or grain that helps them maintain their body condition.  Again, it is a case of your goals.  My goals are healthy cows and moderation in all things.  To keep my cows healthy while they are “in milk” I feed them a high energy, high fat and low-in-protein mix of corn meal top dressed with a 14% protein grain. Each cow gets about eight pounds per day in addition to all the hay she can eat.

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