alfalfa question

[scholtefamily]

The current hay we bought is all grass, so we picked up a few bales of straight alfalfa. My question is how much alfalfa can/should I mix with the hay per day for 2 cows in milk. Thanks.

[tinknal]

Depends.

What is the cows condition?

Are they bred?

Are they getting minerals? (they should be regardless)

Are they being grained?

are you happy with their output?

[linn]

I would give the cows a small flake of alfalfa while I milked. That way they will stand longer while being milked and will eat up their alfalfa then and not turn up their nose at the grass hay.

[scholtefamily]

The cows are not acting themselves this week. They don't get enough grain for me to even mention it. (maybe a handful or 2 twice a day as a treat.) They aren't bred. They have several mineral blocks, kelp, we are out of redmond salt at the moment. They don't seem to care about the hay we have so we bought them some differnt hay, which they also don't seem to care for. When I put some alfalfa out there they only eat the alfalfa. Their output has dropped in the last week.

[linn]

That's what I meant by feeding them the alfalfa when you are milking or are these cows that are raising calves? If they have a choice they will go for alfalfa and leave the grass hay. I would make sure they had salt and loose mineral. I don't think cows get enough mineral off of a block, but I could be wrong. Do you have any molasses? Sometimes dribbling a little molasses over the hay will encourage a cow to start eating it. Our cows are standing at the corners of the pasture, looking off into the distance. This happens every year about this time. I call it spring fever. If your cows are losing condition, I suggest upping their grain input.

[tinknal]

Any chance that they are in heat?

[scholtefamily]

The cows were in heat about 8 days ago.

We do have molasses and put that on top of the hay. They just seem so picky. It's almost as though they'd rather starve than eat the hay.

Maybe it is spring fever.

Can you recommend a brand of good loose mineral?

I will try giving them a fleck of alfalfa only when we milk them.

[linn]

We usually get high mag loose mineral in the spring. For our area we like to make sure the mineral has Selenium in it. I think your local feed store should have loose mineral. Tell them that you are looking for something for milk cows.