Why do beef cattle need feed?

**Dilemma: Feed is used to increase beef cattle productivity, so why does it sometimes decrease productivity?

This has to do with the rumination characteristics of cattle. Professionally, the entire rumination process for beef cattle is divided into four stages: regurgitation, rechewing, remixing with saliva, and reswallowing.

1. Feeding Only Grass: Rumen Safety, But No Profit!

When not fed with feed, grass is the primary diet for cattle. Grass ferments in the rumen. While this fermentation process produces acid, grass, as roughage, ferments and breaks down slowly. Furthermore, when the cow regurgitates grass pellets, it brings saliva from the mouth back to the rumen. The alkaline substances in the saliva neutralize the acid produced in the rumen. When fed only grass, the cow’s rumination behavior ensures a healthy rumen.

However, when fed only grass, cattle grow slowly. Because grass is nutritionally limited, it cannot meet the various requirements of bone, muscle, and fat. This is especially true for well-bred beef cattle. Feeding only grass barely meets the daily needs of the cattle, leaving no extra nutrients for fattening and growth. The cattle may be healthy, but their economic value is not realized.

2. Increasing concentrate feed: This often leads to rumen acidosis and no profit!

To achieve profitable farming, we need to provide cattle with a nutritionally balanced diet, supplementing forage with concentrate feed. What is concentrate feed? It’s a premixed feed consisting of a corn-based energy feed, a soybean meal-based protein feed, and various trace elements.

Concentrate feed is characterized by comprehensive nutritional content, with nutrient concentrations flexibly adjusted to suit the cattle’s different stages of development. In addition to meeting the cattle’s daily needs, it also provides sufficient nutrients for bone, muscle, and fat growth.

Adding concentrate feed can easily cause metabolic problems. Unlike forage, concentrate feed ferments rapidly in the rumen after ingestion, producing a large amount of acid in a short period of time. This acid cannot be completely neutralized by the saliva brought into the mouth by the cow through rumination.

[Scenario 1] To neutralize more acid, multiple additives are required. Beef cattle farms often use rumen buffers such as baking soda to maintain rumen pH balance. In addition to these buffers, direct-feed microorganisms such as yeast and ionophores (such as monensin) can also be used for comprehensive control.

However, this fragile balance is easily disrupted. For example, an unsuitable concentrate-to-forage ratio can be a contributing factor to rumen pH imbalance. Feed must be degraded in the rumen for optimal digestion and absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. However, when the rumen environment is overly acidic, the rumen flora becomes unbalanced, and the ability to degrade feed decreases, leading to a significant loss of nutrients and the development of metabolic problems, resulting in a decrease in cattle productivity.

Therefore, in production, the following two measures are often used to address this issue:

[Scenario 2] Gradual Transition of Concentrates: For example, in the late finishing stage, the proportion of concentrate supplements in the TMR should be gradually increased from 20% to 60% over 2–3 weeks to allow the rumen flora to adapt to the highly fermentable feed and prevent the pH from remaining below 5.6 for extended periods, which can lead to subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA).

[Scenario 3] Effective Neutral Detergent Fiber (peNDF) and Particle Size: These two indicators are particularly critical for maintaining rumination and salivation in beef cattle. Sudden drops in rumen pH can be prevented by adding appropriate amounts of roughage or increasing roughage particle size.

***Beef Cattle Feed Formula Design and Effectiveness Evaluation

To achieve effective feed, multiple factors must be considered.

1. Raw Material Selection: First and foremost, feed quality is paramount. High-quality feed ingredients are fundamental. Factors such as the starch content of corn, the protein content of soybean meal, and the fermentation quality of silage all impact the nutritional value of the feed and the cattle’s feeding, digestion, and growth.

2. Determining Nutritional Needs: The nutritional composition of the feed is also crucial. It must meet the needs of cattle at different growth stages, including protein, energy, minerals, and vitamins. A deficiency or excess of any nutrient can affect the cattle’s production performance and health.

3. Formula Calculation and Optimization: Someone asked, “I’m following the formula and feeding plan provided by the feed manufacturer, so why aren’t I seeing any results?”

Current Situation 1: I don’t understand the actual nutritional needs of beef cattle at each production stage.

The energy/protein/mineral/vitamin ratios need to be adjusted at different growth stages. For example, in the early stages of fattening, emphasis may be placed on skeletal growth (high calcium and phosphorus), while in the later stages of fattening, emphasis may be placed on muscle mass (high energy).

Current Situation 2: Inappropriate Feed Nutrition

For example, we lack access to many local feed ingredient databases, making it difficult to accurately design feed formulas. This is especially true for trace elements, where a safety margin is crucial to prevent antagonism or metabolic disturbances caused by excessive amounts.

As a professional feed manufacturer, we are responsible for developing core feed nutrition plans for beef cattle, while farmers need to possess the relevant skills of beef cattle feed formulators.

At the same time, we must focus on the health of the cattle herd, observing feces, feed trough consumption, and slumping rates. This, combined with multi-dimensional assessments such as body condition scoring (BCS), rumen pH monitoring, feeder behavior monitoring, and blood biochemical indicators, can help identify digestive, metabolic, or intestinal health issues early. Only by ensuring effective management can we maximize feed input and output.