Winter Feeding Tips

Courtesy Dr. Brynne Rothwell and Kathy Hyland

Winter-feeding of livestock

Livestock can adapt to living outside during the cold season; however, owners must be vigilant to ensure the welfare of their animals.

          ¯  Livestock feel the cold - provide shelter from wind and rain, snow or ice

¯  Livestock need energy to stay warm – increase feed rations at low outside  

     temperatures

¯  Livestock can only eat so much – provide supplemental feeds if roughage   

   (hay) does not meet the animals’ energy needs

¯ Livestock need water – provide water regularly or consider heated water

    sources. Check water sources daily. Snow is not an acceptable source of         

     water.

¯  Livestock shouldn’t lose weight – observe animals closely and address

     weight loss immediately

“Keepin’ Up the BTU’s

Three to the barn for oats and hay

           Orderly entering their stalls

A morning routine, pampered

           Creatures of habit in every way

Two hours in, then out to play

            Happy, curried and fed

Packed snow shed, from hooves

             Two harnessed and hitched to the sleigh

Two stand too close! TIMBER! Not understood

              As I fall and block

Split and pile, harvest

               Dead standing wood

Three follow me, axe in hand

                I open a hole in the ice

Each drinks in respectful turn

                “Order of rank” in the band

Atop the dugout mound of clay

                Three stand sleepily content

Broadside to the warming winter sun

                 On this clear crisp November day

                                                                          Rothwell 2006”