Animals – The hunger games

I have just spent a day as a veterinarian with some of the officers of Northland’s Ministry of Primary Industries Animal Welfare Compliance team, investigating a complaint of skinny or underfed cattle. This raised two important points, which I would like to discuss. The first is around the public’s attitude towards the compliance officers, the second is around misconceptions about what constitutes adequate feeding of farm animals.

Over coffee with the animal welfare compliance officers and their colleagues, the fisheries compliance officers, we discussed the public’s attitude towards them. Fisheries officers are respected. The general public are aware of their presence and people are happy to comply with these officers’ requests. Contrast that with the animal welfare officers, who have received several threats to their own welfare. Both types of compliance officers are doing their jobs well. Why the difference in attitudes towards them? Either we haven’t been exposed to the animal welfare officers for as long as the fishery officers, and therefore don’t have as much respect for animal welfare officers, or else the attitude is simply that this property is my domain and I will protect it with my gun. This really is the old Wild West. We all need these compliance officers, they do a great job.

The second point is around what constitutes adequate feeding of farm animals, which include all sheep, goats, cattle, alpacas and horses. This can be a complex discussion, but I will just provide two very simple rules of thumb. First, for any of these animals to achieve an adequate food intake of grass, the grass needs to be five centimetres high from the ground to the top of the pasture sward. Second, the very minimum amount of food that they need to eat per day to maintain their bodyweight is two per cent of their total body mass. A 50kg sheep needs 1kg of dry matter per day. A 500kg cow or horse needs 10kg of dry matter. For a mother animal to produce milk or feed a developing baby, she will require more food than this.

Dry matter feed needs an additional qualification. The dry matter is the actual food quantity minus water. Fresh grass normally has a dry matter of 20 per cent. This means that the cow or horse needing 10kg of dry matter requires 50kg of fresh grass. A sheep needing 1kg of dry matter requires 5kg of fresh grass. A typical small bale of hay provides 20kg of dry matter. A frequently quoted figure for feeding cattle is one bale per seven cows, but this will only provide 3kg of dry matter each. These animals need an additional 7kg of dry matter grass (35kg wet weight) to get enough food to maintain bodyweight.

Feeding farm animals is more complex than my simple rules of thumb, but they do provide a rough guide. If your pasture is less than 5cm tall then perhaps your animals are not getting enough to eat. One bale of hay per day will not feed five cows if the grass is only 1cm high.

Stephen McAulay, CEO and head vet, Wellsford Vet Clinic
www.vetsonline.co.nz/wellsfordvet