Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:45 am
I am looking for experience people have had feeding potatoes, carrots, and waste grain to dexters in milk.
My situation: we commercially raise potatoes & carrots; and grain for bread, pancake mixes, rolled oats (not for cattle feed). We had a jersey milk cow & steer for home use for 30 years. Now finally completely switched over to dexter for reasons of better suitability to the small farm. Jerseys require too much grain, have too much milk for a busy non hard cheese maker (I can handle yogurt & cream cheese), and have too many health problems.
So we have potato and carrot pickouts and wheat middlings, oat waste (real nice) and buckwheat hulls.
My problem: I have one dexter since she was a week old 17 months ago. She can handle up to 15 pounds of carrot/potato per day without any problem. I never gave her any grain to speak of (maybe a couple of pounds/ day) because she was always well rounded on our lush clover pasture and clover hay.
My second cow is a small chondro carrier came in August with a heifer calf and was a little thin when I bought her because she was just on thin hay. So I started them in on our waste grain and worked cow up to 5 pounds/day. When pickout potatoes/carrots became available I worked her gradually up to 20 pounds/day. Jerseys I have fed 50 pounds/day with no problem and a dairy farmer freind with jersey/holsteins used to feed 150 pounds/day. Every dairy and beef cow in potato country eats pickouts (they must be ground to prevent choking).
In December the heifer (6 months old bloated and died. She was not on much potato/carrot because she did not prefer it. She may have had some (pound or two of grain). I dont really know what took her. It was fast, I thought she was ok, feel awful, of course. It was not choking. Overnight bloat.
Then the cow bloated, non critical and I walked her, watched her, kept the vet updated, she was ok, it went down. The vet thinks the oldfashioned breeding won't handle the fast fermenting grain/potato/carrot type foods as well as the modern breeds.
So I have this good feed, but am afraid to push her back into it. I have taken her back up to 2 pounds of grain, 10 pounds of potato/carrot.
Does anyone have ideas? I know some think I should drive to the grain store any buy the real thing, but that is not why we traded down to dexters. We wanted to have a cow that fit into our farm.
My situation: we commercially raise potatoes & carrots; and grain for bread, pancake mixes, rolled oats (not for cattle feed). We had a jersey milk cow & steer for home use for 30 years. Now finally completely switched over to dexter for reasons of better suitability to the small farm. Jerseys require too much grain, have too much milk for a busy non hard cheese maker (I can handle yogurt & cream cheese), and have too many health problems.
So we have potato and carrot pickouts and wheat middlings, oat waste (real nice) and buckwheat hulls.
My problem: I have one dexter since she was a week old 17 months ago. She can handle up to 15 pounds of carrot/potato per day without any problem. I never gave her any grain to speak of (maybe a couple of pounds/ day) because she was always well rounded on our lush clover pasture and clover hay.
My second cow is a small chondro carrier came in August with a heifer calf and was a little thin when I bought her because she was just on thin hay. So I started them in on our waste grain and worked cow up to 5 pounds/day. When pickout potatoes/carrots became available I worked her gradually up to 20 pounds/day. Jerseys I have fed 50 pounds/day with no problem and a dairy farmer freind with jersey/holsteins used to feed 150 pounds/day. Every dairy and beef cow in potato country eats pickouts (they must be ground to prevent choking).
In December the heifer (6 months old bloated and died. She was not on much potato/carrot because she did not prefer it. She may have had some (pound or two of grain). I dont really know what took her. It was fast, I thought she was ok, feel awful, of course. It was not choking. Overnight bloat.
Then the cow bloated, non critical and I walked her, watched her, kept the vet updated, she was ok, it went down. The vet thinks the oldfashioned breeding won't handle the fast fermenting grain/potato/carrot type foods as well as the modern breeds.
So I have this good feed, but am afraid to push her back into it. I have taken her back up to 2 pounds of grain, 10 pounds of potato/carrot.
Does anyone have ideas? I know some think I should drive to the grain store any buy the real thing, but that is not why we traded down to dexters. We wanted to have a cow that fit into our farm.