Daily Cattle Feed by Weight

Cattle feed: dry matter per day

EMBRAPA Gado de Corte and most extension services work from a simple rule of thumb: adult cattle eat about 2-3% of body weight in dry matter (DM) per day. So a 500 kg steer puts away roughly 10-15 kg DM/day, split between forage (pasture or silage), concentrate (corn, soy) and mineral salt. Lactating cows need more, around 3.2-3.8% BW, because milk production is hungry work. A feedlot diet normally runs 12-18% concentrate; out on pasture with strategic supplementation (capineira plus protein-energy salt) that share comes down. To put numbers to it: a 450 kg bull at 2.5% works out to 11.25 kg DM/day, and at 70% forage with 30% concentrate that's about 7.9 kg forage and 3.4 kg concentrate.

Applications

This comes in handy for dairy and beef cattle ranching, for planning supplementation in feedlots, and for sizing your capineira and silage stock. EMBRAPA Gado de Corte and Gado de Leite publish reference tables broken down by age, weight category and production stage. When you're finishing in feedlot, daily intake usually sits around 2.2-2.5% BW on a high-energy concentrate, which is what drives average daily gain up to 1.2-1.6 kg/day.

FAQ

Dry matter or natural matter? The 2-3% rule is in DM. Fresh pasture is only 20-25% DM, corn silage about 35%, concentrate around 88%. Convert to as-fed before you weigh anything out.

Why does the lactating cow eat more? Making milk costs extra energy and protein. A Holstein producing 30 L/day can eat 22-25 kg DM/day, which is 3.5-4% of body weight.

Does breed change the calculation? A little. Zebu cattle (Nelore, Brahman) tend to eat slightly less per kg of body weight than European breeds like Angus or Charolais, but the 2-3% rule holds up well as a starting point for either.