Feed for cattle

In dairy production, the feeding programme affects profitability more than any other single factor. The costs of feeding make up 60 - 80% of the variable costs of milk production.

Feed formulation is a technique by which different feed ingredients are combined to provide required nutrient to animals for a period of time usually 24 hours at different stages of production.

The nutrients to be supplied in a feeding programme include energy, protein, minerals and vitamins. These should be supplied in their required amounts to meet specific performance targets. Carbohydrates and fats are the major sources of energy.

All feedstuffs consist of water and dry matter. For example, if the water content of a feedstuff is 75%, the dry matter (DM) content is 25 %. Although water is very important for cattle, it plays a vital role in functioning of the body, milk production, and the total intake of food.

The amount of water needed depends on:
*the body weights
*the milk production
*the temperature
*the feeds and the diet

Carbohydrates in feedstuffs comprise of sugars, starches (e.g. derived from cereals, tubers and roots) and substances which are part of the plant cell walls, vessels and woody tissues, mainly hemi-cellulose, pectin, cellulose and lignin. Pectin is found in high levels in beet pulp, citrus pulp and legumes and is the most rapidly fermented portion of the cell wall. When a cow consumes carbohydrates the ruminal microorganism release enzymes that break them down into monosaccharides or simple sugars.

Fat or “ether extract” also provide energy. In fact, a certain amount of fat provides much more energy (+3x) than the same amount of carbohydrates. Fat is very important part of young claves’ diets because of the amount of energy they need to grow. Some vitamins (for instance A, D, E and K) are found in the fat fraction of a feedstuff.

Protein is needed for growth, maintenance, reproduction and production. The material to build up the muscles, fetus and the milk production. In general, every animal needs a certain minimum amount of protein daily in order to stay healthy and productive.

Minerals: They are needed for growth of the bone and the fetus as well as for the milk production. Vitamins: Intervene in the metabolism and the digestion of feeds.

Ration should be palatable, digestible with permissible level of anti-nutritional factors, economical and should have very less adverse environmental effect.
Feed for cattle

Nutrition of beef cattle

In the United States, the sale of cattle for beef is the number one source of income to agriculture by a wide margin.

Most successful year around production of beef cattle usually depends upon the degree of attainment reached in meeting their day-to-day nutrient requirements.

Nutrition is an important modulator of immune function and can often tip the balance between health and disease.

Nutrition plays a key role in production success. In cattle, one of the most studied nutrition relationships is the effect of dietary energy and body energy reserves on postpartum breeding performance.

Feeding grain is common in feedlots. Corn or maize is the most prevalent followed by grain sorghum, barley and wheat.

Corn is a relatively abundant and inexpensive energy source containing approximately 70% starch. In feedlot diets, calcium supplementation is required in all cases, owing to the low concentration of calcium in basal ingredients such as grain.
Nutrition of beef cattle

Domestication of cattle

Cattle can be used for meat, milk, butter and cheese. Their hides can be used to make shoes, clothing and shields for fighting.

Their dung can be used as fertilizer, mixed with mud for building mud huts, or burned as fuel.

Domesticated cattle were probably used for the production of milk, meat and for draught power from the start of their symbiotic relationship with humans, but even as early as the Stone Age cattle also had a dominant role in religion.

The two main groups of domesticated cattle, Bos Taurus (European) and B. indicus (India and Africa.

The wild ancestor of domestic cattle was Bos primigenius, the urus or aurochs, which became extinct in Poland in 1627.

Domesticated hump-backed cattle (B indices, “Zebu”) existed in Mesopotamia by 4500 B.C. Domesticated long-horned cattle in Egypt by about 4000 B.C; both of these appear on pottery and friezes of the period.

Bos Indicus was introduce into Africa through Egypt or the African east coast. Several breeds of domesticated cattle were known by 2500 B.C. An interesting frieze from Ur, dating from 3000 B.C, shows that cows were then milked from the rear.

According to the experts, this further evidence that the domestication of sheep that of cattle. About this same time the fattening of cattle by forced feeding was practiced in Egypt.

Neolithic people entered central India in a series of waves from northeastern Iran prior to 2200 BC. They had herds of Bos indicus.

Domesticated cattle survived in increasingly large numbers in deforested areas where the land had been converted to grassland.

Domestication of cattle