Nesikep":8400mrlf said:
I noticed the incredible vaguery in people's responses as well.. seems as a lot of people here are terribly against others knowing how many cows they have, and thus provided completely useless answers.
I left out the weather here.. usually about 20F, down to -10F or so on a cold week
I've heard it said that 35F degrees is like room temperature to a cow. A cow with a good winter hair coat, on a dry sunny day, with no wind it's "shirt sleeve weather" to a cow. Much like a human is typiclally comfortable at 70 degrees.
Wind starts to blow, rain/snow, subzero temps, these will make both a cow and a man hunker down and eat more grub to keep warm
Especially with good winter grazing available, on a nice day a cow will eat some hay, then get bored with it and head out to graze.
On a stormy day, the cow will hunker down where you feed her and eat, and eat, and eat some more.
I would not be suprised if the cow eats 2X the hay on a cold winter day as on a mild day :2cents: