Observe cattle to evaluate nutritional value of pasture

DAVIS, Ill. — Becoming a trained observer of livestock can help producers evaluate the nutritional value of their pastures.

“We pay attention to grass, but we need to pay attention to the animals and a lot of times they will tell us the same story, if we are listening,” said Travis Meteer, beef specialist for University of Illinois Extension.

“I don’t think there’s any better return to your time as being able to identify the early signs that your livestock are trying to tell you about what is going on,” he said during a presentation at the Illinois Forage Expo, organized by the Illinois Forage and Grassland Council.

Manure is one of the signs that can be used to evaluate the nutrition of a diet.

“If there is too much protein, the manure is going to be very loose, and if there is adequate and not excess protein, a good manure pat has a dimple in the middle and solid formed on either side of that dimple,” Meteer said.

“If there is too little crude protein in the diet, oftentimes the manure pat is dry and segmented,” he said. “So, the livestock are telling you through their manure that their diet needs protein supplementation and more digestible fiber.”

There is not a great visual measure of energy in a ration for cattle, said Meteer during the expo held at the Eric Stiegler and Don Brown farms.

“Body condition scoring is a really good measure of nutrition for the past 60 to 90 days, but an immediate read on energy is difficult,” he said.

Cattlemen can train their eyes to do body condition scoring at no cost to their operation.

“There’s a tremendous amount of research that supports when cattle are in a good body condition score, they will breed at higher rates so you will have less open cow days and that equates to a more profitable beef cow,” Meteer said.

Any cow under a body condition score of 4, the beef specialist said, is too skinny.

“Cows in body condition score of 5 or 6 are ideal,” he said. “A 6 or 7 score is probably more ideal for first calf heifers, knowing that they are going to have a growth requirement when they calve.”

Since higher quality forages result in increased dry matter intake for cows, Meteer said, cattlemen can look for cows that are full on their left side.

“In many cases that means we have adequate forage availability and high enough quality since the animals are consuming adequate amounts,” Meteer said.

“Cattle that are slick and shiny in terms of their hair coat means a lot of times that they have good forage quality and good mineral nutrition, as well,” he said.

Hoof quality can also be an indicator of forage quality.

“If the cattle have shiny, clean hooves or dry, cracked hooves, the animal is trying to tell us something in terms of nutrition,” Meteer said.

“Pay attention to the animals, and if you need to, go back and reformulate and adjust their basic diet components,” he said. “That could mean moving to a new paddock or setting out hay to add fiber to the diet in a situation where we have washy grass.”

The cattle may need a supplement or switching to a different hay may be the answer.

“If we have issues with poor quality hay and the cattle are not eating it, we may need to process the hay to increase intake by reducing particle size,” Meteer said.

“It is very hard to hone in on balancing a ration without a hay test,” he said. “I encourage everyone to get your hay tested.”

There are abundant feed resources in Illinois, so if someone has a poor quality forage there are options for byproduct supplements.

“There’s different ways to do it, but we have to know what we’re working with on the hay side before we can adjust rations from a supplement standpoint,” Meteer said.

A good quality hay not only has more nutrients for the animal, but it can also be less hassle for the farmers in terms of dealing with balancing rations, waste or feed refusal.

“The better hay we have, the less we have to worry about supplemental needs,” Meteer said.

“It seems weird to talk about lush forages at the end of July, but with all the rainfall and regrowth we’ve had, I would not be surprised that we have some unsatisfied cows because they are grazing the lush regrowth,” he said. “That is pretty common with cover crops, but not so common on grass pastures.”

Stockpiling cool season forages can help to reduce feed costs.

“I think there’s no better way to save on hay than to stockpile forages,” Meteer said. “In central and southern Illinois, we have a lot of fescue that animals don’t prefer in the summer, but in the fall it’s probably the best grass to stockpile.”