Could farmers be teaching cows bad habits?
Although it might be entertaining to see cows running toward the feedbunk and eagerly start eating, this is also a sign that they’re hungry. Unfortunately, they might be so hungry that it’s a detriment.
“The reason why that can be concerning is that if cows do that too much, they’re going to consume too much feed too quickly,” said Trevor DeVries, professor and cattle behavior specialist at the University of Guelph. “That can then have a negative impact on the rumen environment.”
“Those large meals get digested fairly quickly, particularly the highly fermentable carbohydrates,” he continued during “Troubleshooting Herd Health Issues on Your Dairy-Feeding Behavior,” a Cornell Cooperative Extension podcast. “As a result of that, rumen pH gets potentially depressed, and with that, fiber digestibility gets depressed. Those things can then have a negative impact on passage rate from the rumen, overall digestibility, and even influence the risk of milkfat depression, so that’s potentially problematic.”