Feeding Cattle During And After A Drought

During a cattle information day hosted by the Berg Farmers’ Association in Barkly West, Johan Mouton, manager of research and development for ruminants at RCL Foods, shared some advice on how to manage feeding for livestock after a drought. Sabrina Dean reports.

- Sabrina Dean

A drought does not change how much feed a cow requires to produce a calf, says Johan Mouton, manager of research and development for ruminants at RCL Foods.

“You, as the farmer, have to adapt to make it possible for the cow to remain productive.”

Standards published by the Agricultural Research Council indicate that a dry cow needs 8kg of dry material a day to survive. “I like to say that to produce a weaner calf, a farmer needs a cow, a bull and about 5t of grass,” he says.

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

Mouton says farmers often ask him whether it is necessary to use a hay ring. “We did the calculation based on a trial in which we measured hay consumption with and without the use of a hay ring. Without a hay ring, feed consumption, including waste, amounted to 13,5kg/animal/ day. The moment we started using hay rings, consumption fell to 9,5kg/day.”

Another common question is whether to control the movement of animals to limit the area on which they can graze.

He says that for every 2km an animal walks, its energy requirement increases 5% to 10%. When animals are being fed poor-quality hay, like wheat straw, or when they are grazing on lands with poor nutritional quality, their feed intake increases exponentially.

“Francois Deacon of the University of the Free State collared cattle to collect research data. He found that free-ranging cattle on good grazing walk, on average, 4km to 6km per day to feed themselves. When the feed starts diminishing, they walk up to 14km a day. But the catch is that the energy requirement increases as the feed diminishes, so it is best, especially during or after a drought, to limit the animals’ movement,” says Mouton.