Nutritional needs of dairy cows

The graph below shows recommendations for feed efficiency at different stages of lactation. High-yield and multi-productive cattle are recommended to be above 1.7, first-born cattle are above 1.6; problem cattle or low-yield cattle are 1.2-1.3; if calculated on the basis of the whole herd or there is only one TMR formula, it is recommended to be greater than 1.5; new cattle are less than 1.5, but in fact The lactation efficiency of new cows on many American cattle farms is above 1.8-2, because some new cows will mobilize body fat.

The figure below shows the feed efficiency of different milk production targets, such as 1.63 when producing 40 kg of milk, 1.44 when producing 32 kg of milk, and only 1.2 and 1.3 when the problem cattle yielded 25 and 27 kg. It can be seen that in order to reduce feed costs or improve feed efficiency, the fundamental measure for dairy cows is to increase milk production. The higher the milk production, the higher the feed efficiency, and the higher the return. Many farms deliberately reduce costs and cow production when the market is not good. In fact, the gains outweigh the losses.