daisy.605 said:
Faster horses said:
I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking, what are you feeding your cows that over-eating is a problem?
I have a suggestion. A diet of alfalfa and/or grain hay can lead to entertoxemia. Going to grass hay or grass hay with a small amount
of alfalfa helps that situation a lot.
Baby calves don't need a big blast of milk, causes more problems than not.
A diet lower in protein after calving will result in less milk production and the cow will 'come to her milk' as the calf grows and takes more.
FWIW
I normally feed them alfalfa and grass hay. The problem comes after a snow storm, when the calves are hunkered down and don't nurse like they would normally. When the storm passes, they over eat and die. I also give the cows scour boss shots prior to calving.
How much of that hay is alfalfa? I don't mean to beat a dead horse here,
but if you could feed straight grass hay after calving, I really think some of
your overeating problems would disappear. Alfalfa hay helps to create more milk production and baby calves just can't handle it. Grass hay is more like mother nature and milk production increases as the calves get bigger and can handle the milk. I realize Overeating can be a "good managers disease" but sometimes, we are killing with kindness. I'm not saying not to give the shot, I'm saying what might help to avoid the problem, or to cut down on the problem.
As a FWIW, I have an article that talks about cows' diets high in protein at breeding time. It was specific about the cattle being on cereal grain pastures that were 20% protein. There had been a problem getting the cows bred and research was done on the reason why. What was deducted from that study is that the
high protein in the diet upset the PH in the uterus. The eggs could not attach to the uterine wall. The cows cycled, but did not conceive. They ran the cows in different pastures at breeding time and solved the problem. I thought that was very interesting. It was written by Dr. Price as the Consulting Nutritionist for Beef Magazine some years back.
Good luck!