A jersey off a dairy is going to go through some serious gut bacteria changes and she will fall off in milk without the silage or total mixed ration (TMR) that she was getting. Also, the stage of lactation will cause her to drop off and probably will not come back as well. I am not trying to be negative.... Been there. Done that many times.
16% is minimum... I used to get 28% dairy concentrate pellets and mix in a little bit, with the 16% ration, to boost the protein to 18% in early lactation, so my heavier milking jerseys would keep condition and breed back. I also fed 20-25 lbs m/l grain to my fresh and heavy milking jerseys a day... 10-12 lbs a feeding to get them to come into milk and keep it flowing. Remember a gal weighs 8+ lbs... and a calf needs at least 1/2 gal per feeding.. so you are going to have to feed at least for 2 to 2 1/2 gallons a feeding.... so 15 lbs grain a feeding if you want her to try to keep up enough milk production. It is going to get expensive....
I am not sure where
@Hoover over came up with the 1lb per gallon.... most of the dairies that feed silage here are feeding 75-90 lbs of TMR per cow per day for a 75 lb average... with decent hay that means that you have to up the grain, to compensate for the difference in silage... it is usually only 8-10% protein for corn silage... but the supplements will get the protein up and it is more balanced. You have to feed more and better this time of year with no grass to supplement; and you are going to have to realize that she is going to fall off in milk as soon as she gets bred since she is already 6 months into her lactation. The cervix may not be her only problem... she is a little thin and may not even cycle right off after getting a complete diet change... and it might be the trigger to get her to cycle and conceive too....
My jer/hol cross has 3 calves on her this time. I am not
going to rotate calves off her this lactation. They weigh in the 300+ lb range now... hers born May 10th, and the 2 blk bull calves put on her 2 days later....all 3 are dairy/beef crosses....5 months old.... . they are eating grain good and grazing and have her full time... and she has been getting a 5 gallon bucket a day (split in 2 feedings)( weighs around 22-25 lbs per bucket), since she was fresh up until about 2-3 weeks ago. I have cut her back to about 3 gal a day now and the calves are eating out of the bunk... there are 7-9 coming into the bunk daily and get 4 gallons of grain once a day... not everyone always comes in and one on a 1/2 dairy/beef cross cow, is actually getting too big to come through the creep gate now... born in April...
So, 1 lb grain per gallon of milk is low in my estimation... it might work well for
@Hoover but in no way would my jer/hol keep up her body weight and produce the milk these calves need on 3-4 lbs grain a milking. They get no hay in the summer here, just plenty of good grass pasture and the other cows are not getting any grain except a lb or so once or twice a week to keep them coming in the pen....all the others are very fleshy from the grass as the pasture was understocked all summer. She is in very good condition. She is also bred back (I am pretty sure)... have not checked her but no heats... bull would have gotten her bred back by 45-60 days as he went out of there about 8-9 weeks after her calving. There are 4 in there he should have caught before being moved out. They will get preg checked soon and I have no reason to think any are open.
How much are you feeding Bessie? I think that it is more than 1 lb per gallon of milk with the number of calves you have had on her. And she did not breed right back right?
I would not trade my dairy cross nurse cows for love or money... but the way I figure it, they need to wean off 12-1400 lbs of calves...I usually figure 3 to sell pays for all her expenses, upkeep, breeding etc., 1 to keep OR 1 for profit. That is if I only let her raise up 4... I used to do 3 plus 2 more for the second go round... But I also did not put them on and pull them off like you do with Bessie... mine got calves for 4+ months, then started 2 more on her, then weaned off the bigger ones after the smaller ones had 2-4 weeks on her so that they could handle the milk. I figured it cost $3/day in grain May to Oct.... no hay, except sometimes I would feed a single flake of alfalfa in the barn and cut the grain a pound or 2 if I had the alfalfa... then it costs about $5/day for when she is getting good hay until the 2nd bunch are weaned and she is dried off. $8-900 a year for her to produce 3-4 calves. Here a beef cow cost us about $600 just in feed and associated costs... this year the costs will go to $650 or 700. And, I find that 2-3 months dry off works better for me with the jerseys.... Normally I like them to calve in April so they go dry in January.... about the time we are getting groups of steers together to sell in Feb or March.
Grain costing more this year, will skew the figures I had... It is costing about $4 / day for grain for her now... but again, she is in real good shape and the calves all are chunky and fleshy. As soon as she gets preg checked, I will determine how long they will stay on her but at least until after the holidays....
There is a guy on here, that can tell you to the penny what it costs him to feed his beef cattle a year. He figures in everything, hay, supplements, vet costs, value of the pasture, value of ag taxes, depreciation of fences.... everything. He can back it up too.... and on average in 2020 it was about 1.46 a day or $535 per cow per year. So she had to produce a calf that weighed over 500 lbs x 1.50 lb to make $200 per cow per year. That is not much money for a year long deal... if you look at it that is only 20,000 for 100 calves/ profit.... NOT alot of money for a years worth of work....
So, don't discount ALL that goes into the costs... yep, you have the land, but you need to divide that value by the number of cattle and a nurse cow is one of the group... too often we don't figure in ALL the small costs and think we are making big bucks on them... but we are kidding ourselves if we don't take into account all the costs. If you want to write off all those costs to the beef cattle then that is fine... make sure that you assign a true value to them too.
I write off the whole cost of the nurse cow leased pasture where I keep the nurse cows, to the beef animals that are also kept there... but that makes their calves less "profitable" since they are subsidizing the nurse cows. And like this year, we are running heifers there now, so there will be no income from them. The 4 cows of mine and the 4 cows of my son's, calves will carry the whole cost of the pasture to feed the heifers for the next year until they are sold or retained and bred....
There is more that needs to be figured in than just the tangible out of pocket costs for the nurse cow expenses....
must be some good milk.
