Good Nutrition for Healthy Cattle
I know that cattle are ruminants. What does this mean and what types of feed and nutrients do cattle need to keep them healthy?
As ruminant animals, cattle have four compartments in their stomach, with the rumen the largest. The rumen also serves as the main center for digestion.
The rumen is filled with billions of tiny microorganisms that can break down grass, hay and other vegetation that animals with one stomach (including humans) cannot digest. Cattle have the ability to convert many of the plants that humans cannot use directly as food into high quality protein in the form of meat and milk.
Because of their unique digestive system, cattle require the following in their diets to keep them healthy:
Forage
Forage keeps cattle’s digestive systems functioning correctly. Producers can generally meet their animals’ forage requirements by letting them graze on pasture, or by feeding dried hay. Producers may also elect to graze crop residue, such as corn or bean stubble after grains have been harvested.
High quality pastures with young, growing forages and legume blends can often meet cattle’s nutritional requirements for growth and maintenance. Low-quality forages such as mature pasture or hay and crop residue offer less nutritive value and require supplementation.
Concentrates
Producers use concentrates such as corn, oats, wheat, barley or manufactured grain concentrate (feed) to supplement the forage cattle consume. These types of grains are also great sources of energy.
Soybean meal and corn distillers dried grains provide cattle both protein and energy and along with corn are major components of manufactured feeds.
It is important that protein and energy, whether from forage or concentrates, remain in balance to support growth and maintenance without causing unnecessary expense and under-utilized nutrients. In the case of protein, overfed protein is excreted in the urine. In the case of energy, fed in excess, animals will become over-conditioned resulting in poor reproductive performance. In younger cattle protein and energy must be properly balanced to achieve proper growth without cattle becoming too fat. Manufactured feeds are the easiest way for producers to provide balanced supplementation to their available forages.
Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamins and minerals represent a very small percentage of the nutrients in cattle diets (3-4 ounces per day). Yet, these nutrients are important as they allow chemical reactions to occur within the animal’s body, are vital for bone development and milk production and support the immune system.
Vitamins and minerals may be mixed with cattle’s feed or offered in a free-choice mineral feeder. Free choice feeding of a vitamin mineral supplement ensures the animal meets their nutrient requirements despite the variation in these nutrients in pastures or hay.
Fresh Water
Cattle should always have access to plenty of fresh, clean water because they drink a lot! A beef cow with a nursing calf consumes approximately 18 gallons of water on hot summer days.
Grain and hay fed to cattle should be free of mold, dust and animal feces. Contact your local animal nutritionist, Cooperative Extension Service Agent or veterinarian with questions about keeping cattle healthy with good nutrition.