What Do Our Dairy Cows EAT? | Building Our Cow Palace - BONUS EPISODE!

On top of our usual videos of what's going on day to day around the farm, we thought it might be helpful to highlight some of the things that people may have questions about. That's why I'll take you around the barn to find out just what makes a cow's breakfast!

Ingredients:
Baleage - a bale of hay that was baled in the summer time when the hay was still wet. Right after we bale it, we wrap it in order to block out oxygen allowing it to ferment. That softens and sweetens it up. Smells great!

Dry Hay - from another bale of hay, but this time the hay was laid out in the field in the summer in order to dry all the way. Then we bale it and store it in the barn. Every few weeks we take a few bales out of the barn and chop them up into nice and fine pieces that are easy to eat.

Corn Silage - This is another feed that is stored and sealed while it was set wet in order to allow it to ferment. This time though it is the entire corn plant! Stalk, leaves, tassel, cob and grain, all chopped up into little piece.

Water - Clean water goes in next to add a little more moisture to the meal.

Corn meal - Corn from our farm is stored in a bin and then every week we take a little out and grind it up into powder. Then each day I take some of that powder (we call it corn chop) and add it to the mix.

Premix/Supplement - The last ingredient is the only item don't grow ourselves and is literally one of a kind. That's because it comes specially formulated for our herd and our cows based on the nutritional analysis of everything else. So do we need a little extra protein? Maybe some calcium? Whatever is missing goes in here to make sure the cows get exactly the nutrients they need.

The hot topic online is palm fat. For us, we don't feed it very often. If we do, it is for a few weeks in the summer. That's because cows hate summer heat (they much prefer cool fall nights). When they mind the heat, they start to eat less. When the eat less they may lose weight so we have to rebalance that entire mix to make sure they are still getting all the nutrients they need. Palm is an ingredient that can provide energy for the cows. And they need that added energy in an efficient manner. So we'll add it until the cool summer nights start coming back and then take it out. For reference to how much we feed: our entire feed mix is about 7500lbs each day and if we have any palm to feed we might add 15 pounds of it. (UPDATE: While research is being done to investigate if palm fat has any impact on cream consistency, dairy farmers have been asked to remove palm fat from cow diets. Of course we’ll agree and look for alternatives this summer)

And that's our dairy cow diet!

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