Post by carol on Mar 15, 2018 12:51:08 GMT -5
Hi everyone,
I have a question I can't seem to find a concrete answer to. My 2-1/2 year old angus/jersey heifer has suddenly over the past month or so been bingeing on her hay. She was, up until fairly recently, eating approx 3/4 of a square bale of hay at most per day. Then she recently worked her way up to a full bale daily and was still looking for more after that. Our hay supply this winter was from three different fields. The first batch of hay she finished around the first of the year. She's been eating from the second batch of hay for the past couple of months; it's been since she started on this batch that her appetite for hay has become seemingly insatiable. I've read that the higher quality the hay, the faster it moves through their digestive systems, and this second batch of hay is definitely of a higher quality than the first. Could it be as simple as this - that the hay is just so highly digestible that it just flies through her system? Or could there be another explanation? I even considered maybe parasites/worms, but she shows no signs of ill health - she cuds regularly and acts otherwise normal, and has not lost any weight. My Gwen differs from most people's cows in that she is not a production cow - she's strictly a pet who has never been/will never be bred. She's currently being limited to about 3/4 of a bale per day - we feed her about 1/2 a bale around 5pm, and she has most of that eaten by 8:30pm, then around 8am we give her another 1/4 bale, which she finishes off before noon. Anyone have any thoughts on if this could possibly be the result of a 'teenage' growth spurt, or if it could be the hay quality issue that I mentioned above? Has anyone else had a similar experience? Thanks in advance!