I recently saw this meme floating around Facebook. Sitting here eating my super tasty Prairie Farms roasted red pepper dip with some crackers, I pondered this question:
- Nanny – Nah. We have a pretty amazing babysitter who cares for our kids daily from 7-5.
- Personal shopper – I’ll pass. I truly do not mind grocery shopping and for everything else, there’s Amazon.
- Maid – Well… we already have one who comes every other Tuesday.
- Personal chef – This is one I could get behind. I truly enjoy cooking but my frustration, is what we should eat when. I dread the question, “what’s for dinner?”. In a perfect world, it would be really nice to have someone who knew my family’s likes/dislikes and then prepare a balanced and healthy diet for us. If my cows can have this, why cannot I?
Your cows have a personal chef?
Yes, and they have their own nutritionist!
Seriously?
Yes.
On our farm, we work extremely close with our nutritionist, Richard Mensendike from Vita Plus. Together, we regularly review every aspect of our operation, from the forages we grow to the calves all the way up to the milking herd.
On our farm, right after a calf is born they receive colostrum.
Colostrum intake is critical for the newborn calf, as its immune system is not fully developed when born. The colostrum contains antibodies or immunoglobulins (essential proteins) necessary to provide the calf with protection from disease. After the colostrum, the calves get fed milk replacer twice a day. Milk replacer is very comparable to baby formula. The milk replacer is mixed with hot water and it provides the newborn calf with complete nutrition for healthy growing. {To learn more about milk replacer, click here}. We also provide the calves with calf starter which helps rumen development. The calves remain on this diet until they are weaned at around 2-3 months of age.
After the calves are weaned, they are moved from individual pens to groups. Their diet now consists of dry hay and calf starter for a few weeks. When the heifers are about 4 months of age. they start receiving a total mixed ration (TMR). TMR is a way of feeding cows that combines all forages, grains, protein feeds, minerals, vitamins and feed additives formulated to a specified nutrient concentration into a single feed mix. All of the ingredients are mixed together and fed at once, like a casserole. With TMR, a cow eats a nutrient balanced ration in every bite or mouthful she consumes.
If only it was this easy for humans!
Unfortunately, it is not this easy because we are not ruminants.
Cows are ruminants, which are cud chewing mammal who have 4 digestive compartments in their stomach.
- Rumen holds up to 50 gallons of partially digested food. This is where cud comes from. Good bacteria in the rumen helps digest the cow’s food and provides protein for the cow.
- Reticulum is called the hardware stomach because if cows accidentally eat hardware (like a piece of a pop can – please do not litter), it will often lodge here causing no further damage.
- Omasum is sort of like a filter.
- Abomasum which is like our stomach.
On our farm, we grow around 75% of our milk cow’s ration. The remaining 25% of the ration, or the ingredients of corn gluten (a by-product of the wet corn milling industry that manufactures starch, sweeteners, syrup, and oil from corn) and protein are purchased locally.
In order for our cows to produce a high-quality product (milk), we must grow high quality alfalfa and corn on our farm.
The ingredients in our cow casserole we grow include:
Corn silage – this is where we take the entire corn plant (stalk, cob, husk and kernels) and chomp it into tiny particles. Corn silage is a popular forage for cows because it is high in energy and easily digested.
High moisture corn – we combine the corn at a high moisture (around 25%) and store only the corn kernel in our silo. The kernel is then hammered into very fine pieces almost like a dust and added to the ration. The starch is easily digestible.
Dry Hay – The alfalfa is allowed to dry and baled at a low moisture (18-20%). The alfalfa hay is baled and are 3’x3’8’ and weigh around 800 pounds.
Haylage – Alfalfa is chomped at a higher-moisture (50 – 60%) and stored in our silo where the forage ferments and is preserved. Dry hay and haylage are both fed for protein and fiber. Since the cows are ruminants, they are very efficient at digesting fiber.
Each group of cows has a specific ration which they are fed daily by Chef Donald (my Dad).
- The heifers eat between 10-30 pounds (depending on their size) of high-moisture corn, alfalfa and pellets.
- The dry cows consume around 50 pounds of wheat straw, grass hay, corn gluten, corn silage and mineral. The mineral changes as they closer (within a few weeks of calving).
- The milk cows eat around 100-110 pounds of feed daily. Their ration includes dry hay, corn gluten, corn silage, protein, high moisture corn and corn silage.
Free choice water is always available to all of our animals, regardless of age. A cow producing 100 pounds of milk will drink about 30 gallons of water and produce 45 pounds of urine and 120 pounds of manure.
It takes a village to raise a child and it takes an amazing team of professionals to manage a successful dairy farm from generation to generation.