Don’t discount hay in dairy rations

One of the best ways to quickly orient someone to a lactation dairy ration is to compare it to the diets of a mama cow grazing native pasture and a feedlot steer. These are the two extremes in the range of forage’s role in providing nutrients for growth, production, and the well-being for different classes of cattle.

The mama cow makes her way on as close to a 100% forage diet as possible, depending on seasonal changes and rainfall. The owner of the feedlot animal is on the other extreme, feeding the bare minimum of roughage necessary to keep that animal healthy until harvest. We hope one of these animals lives as long as is productively viable, and the other has a date with destiny somewhere around 2 years old. The forage level in their respective diets plays a part in this life expectancy strategy.

The dairy cow finds herself situated in the middle of these two extremes. Unlike the feedlot steer, we need to keep her rumen appropriately filled with roughage to keep her on track for at least three or four lactations before she experiences a career change from being a milk producer to a beef producer. We would love to be able to feed her a diet more like the mama cow, and from the dairy cow’s perspective, that would be fine. But for the dairy owner, a profitable level of milk production will require a diet that supplies around 50% grain and grain by-products.

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July 30 2025 08:00 AM

By Steve Martin