(Originally published on Praise the Ruminant in April 2019.)
When you raise at least one bovine (or any ruminant, for that matter), you not only have to know how but what to feed it.
The problem is that there’s a surprising amount of misinformation out there—Internet sites, videos, even podcasts—just on feeding cows alone. I can’t exactly put a finger on where it comes from or how it gets perpetuated, but I certainly do understand that a lot of it is based on fear—fear of what we do not understand.
Part of it concerns what comes from the agriculture industry, with the common use of feedlots and confined feeding operations for beef and dairy cattle and the myriad of issues that come from them. The other part is from those who are against these industrialized operations who have good intentions to get the message out to readers like you about how awful these places are but often simplify some of the bad stuff a little too well.
One particular “bad” thing that I really want to focus on today is the common statement that, in various forms:
“Grain is bad for cows; cows are not meant to eat grain; cows don’t need grain.”
There is an element of truth to this. But there’s more to it than that.
Please note that this is not a post showing my support of industrialized livestock systems that support a heavily grain-dependent feeding system. This is merely a post that needs to inject some common sense into the messages above, the kind of common sense that tells everyone, “It [actually] depends.”
I’ve felt a need to discuss this whole anti-grain issue after watching a couple of homesteading YouTube families who recently lost their family milk cows (both Jerseys). Let me briefly explain without naming names.
Neither fed their cows grain, even at milking; both strove to be 100% grass-fed. The first family bought a first-calf heifer who birthed her first calf on their farm. The second family took in an older, 8-year-old cow who was also pregnant and birthed her not-first calf on their farm. Both Jerseys significantly decreased in body condition to the point that they were more emaciated than when they first entered their new homes.
The first family lost their cow when she got caught under a fence in trying to get herself up and most likely died from a displaced abomasum (my wild, uneducated guess, as I’m not a veterinarian). The owner tried everything to get her to stand up, from an IV injection of CalMag (calcium magnesium) for milk fever (which I found suspicious since the cow had long since passed the time that milk fever would be an issue) to ropes and a hip holder to get her to stand up. Less than a couple of days later, she died. (I tried my best to keep an account of what they did to save her, but sadly, they didn’t give their viewers much information beyond the CalMag injections to standing her up and trying to get her fed and watered.)
The second family was the most concerning. They were well-meaning and made it look like they tried everything to get her health back up, from herbal remedies and a 16-way cafeteria mineral mix at the last week of her life to blood tests to remedy some mineral deficiencies. She just wasn’t gaining weight or getting better. In the last few days of her life, she had a high temperature from fescue toxicity and seemed to be acting unthrifty. They ended up slaughtering her for meat.
(Update to old blog: What happened to those cows, and why did they have to die? I listed in her that the lack of sufficient macronutrients–like energy and protein–may be to blame, but because these were two different cows of different ages, they could have declined in health and condition due to other issues. The old cow could have had a different condition that would have caused her decline or a different condition that, compounded with malnutrition, resulted in her death. But I can only speculate. I’m probably one of many viewers who were disappointed that these two homesteading families failed to have a necropsy done on their cows to see what resulted in their deaths [or what forced the second family to decide to slaughter].)
There’s a third homestead family that I’ve been listening to and watching their videos on YouTube that have done an outstanding job with their Jersey milk cow (who is as fit and sassy and beautiful as a cow can get, in my opinion) and her heifer calf, and who I will name names because they’re one of my favourite homesteaders to follow. Homesteady is, in my opinion, one of the best homesteading vloggers out there. You can watch their video on how they feed their cows and why via this link: Our Cow is Not Grass-fed Only – Homesteady vlog.
With that lengthy introduction, let me get down to why cows may not necessarily *need* grain, but there are times when they do, and why grain isn’t exactly bad for them but can be if it’s not fed the right way. I’ll also talk about the ugly truths about feeding grain, which can understandably scare anybody into not wanting to feed grain to any of their animals, but lay it out in a way most should be able to better understand. And the feedlot model? Yep, I lay that out quite plainly, too, and not in a way that promotes it.
Cows as Ruminant Animals
Cows (and cattle) have three fore-stomachs in addition to their true stomach. These fore-stomachs are not true stomachs. Instead, they are extensions of the lower esophagus that have evolved from their ancient ancestors who first started developing a rumen, a reticulum, and an omasum in addition to their true stomach (the abomasum) to effectively and efficiently digest roughages, coarse plant material, or “grass” if you want to be that brief.
This makes them excellent grazers, something that no doubt they’re meant to be. While they’re not as “efficient” at turning forage and fodder into meat and milk, they’re some of the best animals on the landscape because they are compost vats with a mouth and four legs. Their rumens have a teaming community of billions of microbes, from bacteria and fungi to protists galore. Those microbes, not the cow herself, have the job of taking the partly-eaten forage that she consumed and breaking it down in an anaerobic (oxygen-less) environment into much more easily digested components and also releasing the nutrients contained in plant tissues.
The mutual relationship that the cow has with her internal microbial community means that the microbes get food from the fodder she’s eaten, and the wastes they produce give her the nutrients she needs for her body. By-products called VFAs (volatile fatty acids) get absorbed from the rumen into the bloodstream, along with other nutrients. Other by-products not used by the cow, including carbon dioxide and methane, are released when she burps. A cow will usually burp once every minute.
Where does a cow get her protein from, you may ask? The quick assumption is that she gets it from the plants she eats. Well, no, not quite. About half of the protein a cow gets is from the dead microbes that move from the rumen, past the omasum, straight into the abomasum, where they are broken down into amino acids. The other half of the protein she gets will be from some of the plant material, thanks again to the activity of the rumen microbes.
There are two types of microbes in a cow’s rumen: those that break down fibre and those that break down starch. Both co-exist in the rumen, though depending on her diet, one will be more heavily populated. As you may guess, a cow on a grass-fed diet would have more fibre-digesting bacteria than starch-digesting bacteria; the opposite is true for a cow on a high-grain or high-concentrate diet. It’s those fibre-digesting bacteria, though, that make cows truly great at converting forage into milk and meat.
Hence the common and albeit truthful belief that cows and cattle are meant to be on grass, not grain.
…and They Seem to Like Eating Grain, Even Though They “Shouldn’t…”
Cows don’t read books, public forums, social media posts, or Internet articles—they just do what they darn well, please. But they’re not exactly dumb either, even though they can get themselves into fixes that leave us scratching our heads as to how and why they got into such a fix in the first place.
And yes, they can and have died from such predicaments.
We certainly know that cattle, as ruminant animals, are perfectly designed for digesting forages–or just “grass”–because of their fermentation-vat fore-stomachs. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to deliberately select only for the leaves and stems of grasses and forbs and completely avoid the seeds or flowers in the process, especially when those seeds are the most decadent part of the plant! However, if that grass is previously known to cause discomfort or isn’t palatable cattle avoid eating the seed-heads.
In a managed-grazing system where cattle are mobbed up in a dense group, those matured grasses that don’t get eaten will just be trampled to the ground, seeds dispersed, and the material decomposed into the soil along with the manure the animals leave behind when they’re quickly moved to the next paddock.
The way a cow eats is that she will wrap her tongue around the top quarter or third of a plant and pull it in her mouth, then break it off with her lower incisors (she does not have upper incisors like all her other ruminant distant cousins, from bison or buffalo to sheep) to chew briefly, then swallow. It’s that top part of the plant that she will always go for first, never the bottom, where most of the leaves will be. This is especially true if she and her herd mates are put into a stand of mature grasses. She will do the exact same thing if she were grazed in a pasture where grasses have not yet headed out, or have seed heads just beginning to emerge.
Let’s move this cow to a situation where she’s grazing in a field of cereal crops (standing, or in swaths or windrows) or in standing corn, or even in a polyculture crop full of a mix of different annual grasses, legumes, brassicas, and other beneficial forbs from phacelia to plantain. What do you think she and her herdmates will do when moving into a new paddock in these forages?
Go for the cream of the crop, of course!
Remember, a cow takes her first bite off the top part of the plant, which is the most succulent and tasty part. She will then use her body to physically shove the taller plant down to where she can reach the top-most parts, especially if the crop is taller than her tongue can reach. She will tear off the heads and the leaves and keep going until she and her herdmates have trampled much of the feedstock and are ready to move to the next paddock.
When we’re talking corn grazing, of course, the corn will always be taller than the cows. But never underestimate the problem-solving ability of a hungry cow! I have heard stories of cows that will “walk down” a corn stalk–putting the stalk between their front feet on their chest–and push down on the plant with their weight until they reach the cob, the best part of the corn plant. They will strip off the husks with their tongue and eat them. Then they will take the whole cob in their mouths, pull it in with their powerful tongues and begin chewing it down until it’s gone. When the herd is confined to a small area for a day, this forces the cows to not focus so much on the cobs, but also work on the leaves and then eventually–albeit reluctantly–the stems. The rest of the plants get trampled into the ground and mixed with the manure.
Swath-grazing cows learn to use their noses to move away snow to get to the swath underneath. Of course, some cows figure it out quicker than others, and sometimes, it takes a couple of generations for cows to become adjusted and knowledgeable about how to access swaths under the snow. Even if swaths are partly or not covered by snow, cows still know where the good stuff will be and will, just like with the corn, eat that before eating the rest of the plant. With being controlled by cross-fencing and electric fences, they are forced to eat as much of the swaths as possible before being moved on to the next area.
What if an electric fence did not control these animals?
They will overload on the best part of the crop and ignore the poorer, less palatable part until all the best stuff is cleaned up. By “overload,” I mean that they can and will suffer from similar maladies as in a feedlot when cattle are introduced to a high-concentrate ration too fast. They will get acidosis, grain overload, and bloat and can die from that. A rancher can lose cows on corn or swath-grazed fields if those animals are not sufficiently controlled. A rancher could also lose cows on those same uncontrolled fields if the cows survived the bite of overloading on the rich grains but then get impacted and constipated from the highly fibrous portion of the crop.
A recipe for disaster. This is why management in a winter grazing system is so important.
Where Grains Can Kill (or Are Bad)
It’s time I talk about the negative side of feeding grain to cattle.
Grains, as seeds, are high in energy and somewhat high in protein. Grains primarily fed to livestock include corn, barley, oats, wheat, rye, and triticale. These are primarily cereals, except corn, which is generally regarded more as a large-seeded crop.
Grain is normally fed partly “processed,” just by putting it through a mill or steamer to crack, chop, steam, or roll each grain. This makes it easier for animals to digest. Ruminants normally only need coarsely chopped grain compared with grain-fed monogastrics like pigs or chickens.
Grains should never be fed to ruminants as the sole ingredient of a diet like you can with pigs and chickens–well, you shouldn’t exactly do that either, but this isn’t about feeding hogs and poultry. Rather, grains should be fed along with a roughage feed. But, when we start talking about feedlot diets, the last few weeks of a feedlot steer’s life are spent on an 85% grain or high-concentrate diet. I won’t ever say that this is healthy, and I’ll explain later.
The most significant issues with grain and ruminants occur when the animals are fed too much and introduced too soon. Frothy bloat, acidosis, and grain overload are the primary illnesses that result from such a practice.
Frothy Bloat
Frothy bloat is a condition in which tiny bubbles form from the rapid digestion of proteins and starches in the rumen. These tiny bubbles are made up of a really slimy, viscous extracellular fluid that is difficult to break. They contain within them the waste gases that rumen microbes give off in an anaerobic environment—primarily carbon dioxide and methane.
These slimy, unbreakable, CO2/CH4-gas-filled bubbles quickly build up in volume in a short period of time, filling the rumen up so much that the rumen walls become tight as a drum, putting a continual enormous amount of pressure on the lungs. It is at this point that bloat is so severe that the pressure put on the lungs significantly reduces the animal’s ability to breathe properly and get that necessary oxygen. When that happens, the animal dies of asphyxiation. Think of it this way: Bloat acts almost like a python that wraps itself around its prey and squeezes so tight that the prey cannot breathe, and with every breath exhaled, the tightness of its coils increases until the animal dies of suffocation. The only thing is that bloat is completely internal.
Yep, bloat is a nasty, nasty way for an animal to die from.
Frothy bloat does not occur exclusively on grain–often called “feedlot bloat”–it also occurs in pasture. The pasture bloat is another blog post topic, so for this post, I just want to stick with feeding grain–that is, the frothy bloat that comes from feeding grain.
How do animals get frothy bloat on feeding grain? Two ways:
- Eating too much too quickly or as a sudden change in diet: Ruminants need to have an adjustment period of over a week or so to new feeds that are either not familiar to them in palatability and also in quality. Even if a homestead family cow is going to be put on organic grain because she needs to up her body condition, that change must be incremental over several days so that her rumen microbe community can adjust accordingly. If she gets too much too soon, there’s just too much highly digestible matter that her microbes will go in a frenzy to gobble up all that suddenly accessible energy and protein.
- Too finely ground feed is being fed: This is really where the term “feedlot bloat” contains merit because frothy bloat tends to be pretty prevalent in animals that are in the final stages of finishing in the feedlot, where they really are on an 85 to 90% grain ration for the last few weeks of their lives. In a feedlot finishing case, and ironically enough, feedlot bloat can happen when cattle have been on this finishing ration for around 14 days. Often, these cases are attributed to grain ground too finely or dry-rolled with lots of tiny particles that give a greater surface area to the rumen microbes. When you get too finely rolled or cracked grains, this significantly increases the digestibility of the feedstuff, releasing a whole lot of nutrients for those microbes to use, to the point that they will burst from eating too much. That creates the condition for the accumulation of slime that makes those tiny, gas-filled bubbles so hard to burst.
You can tell a ruminant has a nasty case of bloat by looking at its left side. If you see there’s an abnormal distention of the left side (this is where the rumen sits), then you have a cow with bloat. If she does not want to eat and is having trouble breathing, you have a severe case that needs to be remedied NOW.
I won’t get into how to fix a case of bloat before it’s too late and you lose your animal, but the two most popular methods are tubing with mineral oil or using a trocar to the side of the animal. You can read more about how to treat bloat by visiting wikiHow’s How to Treat and Prevent Bloat in Cattle.
The main lesson here is, if you have to feed grain to your cow[s], make sure they are coarsely chopped or ground, or just cracked, so that most of the grain appears whole but only has one mark on it, enough that it will just fall into a couple of pieces. Tempering whole grain (soaking it for 12 to 24 hours in water) will also help, as well as steam-rolling. Both add water to reduce the incidence of dry grain shattering.
The second lesson here is to introduce grains slowly in any ruminant diet. That means introducing grain incrementally. If your target is to feed your cow 5 lb of grain per day over a week (say five days), build up on that target amount by first feeding your cow one pound the first day, then two pounds the next day, and so on and so forth until you’re up to 5 lb by the end of the week. Or, you can increase it every two to three days to be more like a 10-day adjustment period. It depends on what you’re comfortable with.
Keep both of these lessons in mind as I discuss acidosis and grain overload. Both have precedence when it comes to these ruminant-killer conditions.
Acidosis & Grain Overload
Acidosis is a metabolic condition that causes the rumen to drop in pH to more acidic conditions for a period of time. It is another serious malady that merits discussion when it comes to feeding grains to cattle. There are two forms to keep in mind: acute acidosis and subacute acidosis.
Acute acidosis is also called “grain overload” and occurs when ruminants eat too many energy-rich feedstuffs (most commonly grains) at one time, and there is a sudden and rapid digestion of starch in the rumen. This causes the rumen to become severely acidotic for an extended period of time, killing off the acidic-intolerant microbes, except for the lactic acid-producing bacteria, which can thrive quite well in an acidic environment. Unfortunately for the ruminant, these bacteria love these conditions so much that they contribute to ever-acidifying conditions, causing rumen pH to push further downward.
Animals with grain overload are truly noticeably sick (unlike those with subacute acidosis). They are not eating, not moving around or acting lively as they normally do, breathing rapidly, have a bad case of diarrhea (greyish-coloured), or are just found dead.
Subacute acidosis is a whole ‘nother monster. This condition is most common in feedlot animals and in confinement dairy operations. It is much more of an imbalance between acid production and absorption of the rumen and much, much more difficult to detect. The problem is that each time the rumen has to recover from acidotic conditions (where rumen pH dips below 5.8), it can take longer to recover, resulting in just a little more damage to rumen function in terms of decreased nutrient absorption, decreased fibre digestion, and damage to the rumen lining.
Ruminitis can happen when a bout of acidosis is severe enough to damage the rumen epithelial tissue, which invites bacteria to invade these spaces, causing infection, damaging rumen papillae and affecting absorption capability. Bacteria can also enter the bloodstream this way and cause other secondary maladies, such as (and most commonly) liver abscesses and founder (or laminitis).
Let me put it another way: Subacute acidosis happens when ruminants have a bout of grain-eating followed by a period of not eating or a bit of a bellyache that puts them off feed (or just reduces their appetite). They recover from that, then get set back again by another bout of eating the same stuff that gave them the bellyache in the first place, and the nasty cycle continues on.
The main difference between subacute acidosis and acute acidosis (grain overload) is that one will just reduce feed efficiency and cause animals to reduce feed intake for a time, while the other can outright kill in a matter of hours.
If you want to read more about acidosis, I suggest to check out these links:
- Acidosis: Beef Cattle Research Council
- Subacute Ruminal Acidosis: Merck Veterinary Manual
- How to Treat and Prevent Acidosis in Cattle – wikiHow
These conditions are no laughing matter, especially when they result in dead animals or animals that become chronic “poor-doers” for the rest of their lives. But these conditions are the reality, or rather very high risk, for confinement-feeding animals. That’s why the fear around feeding grain is not, as I said above, unfounded and to be acknowledged. And that is why I will stand with you grass-fed/grass-finishing folks and say that the feedlot and CAFO dairies, in the specifics of this bovine-related blog site, are not a good place for any animal to be.
Feedlot Cattle Are “Healthy”… Or Not.
I know I’ll ruffle some feedlot-supporter feathers with this last segment but it’s the kind of things that just need saying.
Not only is there the issue with cattle having to live in a dirt lot that will range from hot and dusty to cold and muddy, even if it’s just four or six months of their lives with their previous times on pasture just a memory, but the fact that these cattle are “forced”–using the term rather liberally–to be eating grain every day for the rest of their lives, right up until the day before are slaughtered, so that they grow faster bigger fatter and more “cheaply,” just isn’t normal nor right. Not from a real deep, compassionate animal welfare standpoint, nor from a nutritional and ruminant physiological standpoint.
Their living conditions are another topic altogether. But when you look at those animals that are to be gaining at around 3 to 4 pounds per day (this is fairly normal, actually) on a feed–or one of the main feeds–that is basically nutritionally deficient and is mostly made up of carbohydrates, don’t you ever think that those animals that are being finished on a feedstuff that is, really, not suited for them as ruminant animals, are suffering within, even though they can’t talk and don’t bear the same human emotions as us to tell us about it?
You see, the immediate thought when I think of cattle being put on grain, I think of it like putting a person on a diet of nothing but candy, chocolate bars, potato chips, and soda, as much as they can eat (even though it’s given to them as a limited diet), for the next half year? Oh, maybe at first they’ll be some vegetables and fruits for the first week, but then the last few weeks of their diet it’s 90% candy and chips! What did you say? It’s not healthy for a person to be on such a junk food diet? Well, of course, it’s not healthy! Then let me ask you this: Why is it then perfectly okay to feed a ruminant a diet that is completely the opposite of what they’re physiologically designed to eat in the first place? Don’t you think that’s also a junk-food diet for them too?
Yes, I know. I’ve already said that cattle like to eat grain because it tastes like candy. But I’m sure you also like to sneak in that chocolate bar when no one’s looking; even though it’s not healthy, it tastes good, too. Same thing, isn’t it? My point is that feeding grains is okay because cattle like to eat them, which is a weak argument for continuing the practice of feedlot finishing. They may like to eat it, but it’s still not healthy for them to be eating so damn much.
Finally, if it’s “healthy” for cattle to be on a feedlot finishing diet like that, why am I hearing a lot of cases with animals dying from acidosis, grain overload, bloat, and other maladies I haven’t covered that I seem to see a lot from bovine veterinarians who share their adventures, such as pneumonia and even heart failure? I’m telling you if you start connecting the dots…
To Conclude…
It really is not necessary to feed grain when there are other options available, including the capability to cull out those cows needing the extra TLC when you’ve got other cows and replacements coming in showing that they don’t need nearly as much, if at all, supplementation.
Honestly, especially in a cow-calf operation, if you’re having to feed grain to your cows, something’s wrong with your management. You need to start looking at what you’re feeding, what kind of cows you have, what bulls you’re selecting for, and what replacements you’re selecting.
I have no problem, and neither should you, with feeding grains to cows and cattle who need it as a supplemental form with other feeds, such as hay or pasture, that they’re also getting because those other feed sources are just not meeting their energy needs. But I have a problem with the over-use of grain, especially to finish cattle when other options don’t call for the need for grain or as much grain can be used to successfully finish a steer or heifer for the freezer or for your clients.
I will never tell you what you can or cannot do with your cow[s]. That’s totally up to you. But I hope this post has given you some “food for thought,” so to speak, and give you a little different insight into feeding grains to cattle.