Several regions across the country have experienced drought conditions in recent years, and the weather trend looks to continue in 2025. It’s important to take steps to plan ahead if pasture conditions deteriorate to the point of having to supplement or feed pairs in confinement.
Karla Wilke, a cow-calf and stocker management specialist for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, addressed the topic of preparing for drought situations in a recent UNL webinar.
“Feeding pairs is different than feeding pregnant non-lactating cows,” Wilke explains. “That’s something all of us are pretty familiar with because most of us in the wintertime have to supplement our dry, pregnant cows, but what we’re talking about now is feeding them at a time that they would normally be getting all their nutrient needs met out on grass.”
Wilke says there are three big concerns to address when feeding cattle in confinement that would typically be out on pasture.
- Meet the energy demands of lactation, which are tremendously more than during gestation
- Make sure cows have a decent body condition status for rebreeding
- Account for the dry-matter intake of the calf
“We often think of the cow supporting the calf, which she does, but in addition to nursing the cow, that calf out on pasture is starting to eat green grass, and if we don’t have them out there then that calf’s intake is not going to be accounted for there,” Wilke explains.
Once that cow goes into lactation, her nutrient needs are quite a bit higher than they were in the winter before that calf was born. A grazing cow on green pasture can meet her needs for early lactation, whereas a cow eating meadow hay and distillers without going out on grass will use up energy reserves and lose fat deposition and body score, Wilke says.
Research dating back as far as 1986 and as recently as 2021 has shown cows in a body condition score less than a 5 on a 1 to 9 scale do not breed back.
“If that’s what their body condition score is at calving, they do not breed back as well as the cows that are in a 5 or greater at calving,” Wilke adds. “We have to meet those needs nutritionally in what we feed them.”
Feeding options when pastures are unavailable:
• Mixer wagon and total mixed ration
• Sacrifice pasture or an area of a pasture to use as feeding ground
• Use hay, crop residue, fallow ground and pivot corners plus supplement
“The important thing to remember is that the feeding space during feeding time needs to be about 2' per cow and one for the baby calf or the young calf,” Wilke says. “The positive thing of being able to do this on crop ground, or somewhere like that, is it does allow you to spread that out enough that we don’t have a lot of issues with boss cows. The downside is waste that you might encounter on the ground.”
Wilke advises to take into consideration that the nursing calf will eat about 1% to 1.5% of its body weight in forage dry-matter intake.
“As he grows, he eats more pounds of feed, so we need to account for that when we’re putting together a diet for the pairs,” she explains. “Research has also shown creep feeding had a greater return over feeding with pairs and early weaning. If creep feeding isn’t an option, a growing period still provided an advantage.”
If you don’t have a mixer or can’t afford someone to grind, Wilke says there are ways to be creative with feeding.
“I’ve had people tip bales on end and soak them with molasses to get the cows to eat the poorer quality hay without having to run it through a grinder, and then they would feed supplemental cake with it,” Wilke says.
Rolling out wheat straw bales and feeding distillers grains in a bunk is another option.
Wilke reminds producers to be mindful that minerals and vitamins for confinement are different than for cattle on grass. Distillers are high in sulfur, which is an antagonist to copper.
“Mineral should have a highly available source of copper in either copper sulfate or copper chloride,” she says “Lactating cows in confinement also need a pretty healthy dose of magnesium in the mineral. If those cows are going through a drought and they’ve already been through a long winter, they are not going to get vitamin A out of the grass.”
Be aware that commercially available mineral packages are usually intended to be fed when cattle are grazing so they might not have an appropriate amount or availability of certain minerals or vitamins. In addition to mineral, lick tubs are used to provide a source of nitrogen for bacteria so cattle can do a better job of digesting poorer quality available feed.
“Once that cow goes into lactation, she has to have energy, and there’s no way that just eating on that lick tub is enough,” Wilke explains. “She can’t just take on more of that poor-quality forage because she ate some nitrogen from that lick tub. You’ve got a limitation there now that you’ve got to provide something else that provides energy for her.”
Preparing during the good years
Sam Schmitt, a fifth-generation rancher from Gordon, Neb., runs a Hereford based cow herd and yearlings in the Sandhills. The family’s philosophy has always been to take half and leave half when it comes to grazing pastures. He’s preparing for another hot, dry summer and wants to make sure his cows are able to breed back. He’ll be using available pasture and supplementing as conditions allow.
“We’re calving now, and cows are getting 2% body weight of hay a day,” he says. “It’s mostly millet and alfalfa with some oats. They’re calving up, and calves seem to be growing, but I want to make sure we have the mineral package and supplement to keep them going.”
In addition to pairs, the Schmitts run a yearling operation, marketing in July or August depending on when they reach 850 lb. to 950 lb.
“Traditionally, we feed oats and supplement DDGs or a pellet to our calves,” Schmitt says. “They’ll go out to pasture, and we’ll watch to make sure they keep growing. We’re purposely understocked now to make sure we have enough grass. If they look like they’re a little lackluster, we will add a Rumensin mineral.”
The Schmitts have enough farm ground to produce the majority of their feed with the exception of protein base from either cake or a pellet or distillers grains.
“We’ve responsibly stocked long enough that if we have a drought this year and next year, as long as we can keep our hay count up and can afford to supplement things, then we’ll be alright,” Schmitt says. “We’ve kept to the philosophy of 10 acres per cow, and we don’t stretch it out unless we have a really good year. We’ve also tried to keep an extra year’s worth of hay each year.”
This isn’t the first drought the family has weathered in the 100 years they have been ranching.
“We had a similar drought in 2012. Everybody was shipping cattle left and right, and they just didn’t have any place for them, and so they had to go to somebody who’d pay for them,” he says. “But we didn’t suffer those costs.”
Schmitt says these are the years you prepare for.
“One thing my elders have always been very serious about is drought,” he adds. “This is drought prone country. You’re in the Great Plains, and this is what happens, and this is why our grass always comes back after a drought.”
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