Dairy cattle nutrient requirements

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©vets delight

 Major nutrients required to feed a dairy cow so that 
she will not only produce good yields of milk for 250 days but also 
have a calf every year

The two major nutrients are


  • Energy (which comes from carbohydrate in the form of sugars, starches, cellulose and hemicellulose found in plants and their seeds)
  • Protein, also found in plants and their seeds.
  • The other nutrients are vitamins and minerals but they will be found naturally in most plants and if not, can be supplemented quite cheaply. Thus it is important that plants fed to cows are high in energy or protein or preferably both.

Natural (veld) grass only has these for the cow for about three months of the year in the rains. After that they are not good enough for good milk yields and good fertility and furthermore, by September, there is often not enough grazing for the animals, especially in a dry year.

Commercial dairy concentrates have energy derived from maize and maize by-products and protein from oil seeds which have been pressed for oil but all these are very expensive compared to energy and protein from forage crops produced on the farm.
Feeding commercial stockfeed should only be done when farm gown forages are not able to meet the animals’ requirements.

NB: If commercial stockfeeds are fed in place of farm gown forages, it is a sure way of losing a lot of money.

In summary, farmers need to produce forages for their animals to:
• Provide higher quality feed than the natural pasture can supply
• Increase overall carrying capacity of grazing systems
• Fill gaps in the feeds supply over the long dry season
• Provide a specialist crop for both feeding in the rains and for conserving
• Provide nutrients for the animals which are much cheaper than those found in commercial stockfeeds 

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