Hay - Time to Roll Another Bale Out

On October 20th I rolled out a round bale of fresh baled hay that I purchased from a neighbor.  He had delivered seven 4 x 5 round bales to our house.  After rolling one out and putting the hay ring around it, the cows came running and started eating on it.  The round bales of hay weigh approximately 880 pounds each.

I looked up some information and learned that a basic rule of thumb for hay consumption is this:

A cow will eat roughly 2.5 pounds of hay per day for each 100 pounds of body weight.

Interesting.  Let's see how this works out.  The bale behind Rosie and Daisy below was given to them on October 20th.

The Hay Buffet

I would assume Daisy weighs 900 pounds, Rosie weighs 800 pounds, and Amy weighs 700 pounds, a total of 2,400 pounds.
2,400 pounds divided by 100 equals 24 (hundred pounds of body weight).
24 x 2.5 = 60 pounds of hay theoretically consumed per day. (according to the rule of thumb)

On the evening of October 26th, I pulled the hay ring off of what remained around the round bale.  Cows are notoriously wasteful.  If you don't have a hay ring around it, they will waste a big portion of the bale.  If you leave the hay ring around the bale to the end, they can't reach the middle and "clean it up."  Once the hay ring was gone, they got busy cleaning it up!

Rosie and Amy finishing up the bale

Rosie and Amy took advantage of the fact that Daisy was busy taking care of her new baby calf, Luna, and they gleefully ate what was remaining of the round bale. They mostly kept their heads down eating, but paused from time to time to chew.

Almost done

Finally on the evening of October 27th, the cows were done.  The round bale was officially gone. The minimal amount of hay laying on the ground would either rot into the soil or I'd rake it up and use it as mulch in the garden.

Mooooo-ve over and bring us another bale!!!

So let's see if the rule of thumb worked out.  

It didn't.  According to our calculations based on the cow's weight, they should have eaten roughly 60 pounds per day.  The bale was gone in 7 days.  At 7 days they should have eaten a total of 420 pounds of hay, or approximately half the bale.  But the bale was gone.  Our cows must have big appetites or the weight of the round bales is off.  Rule of thumb aside, the girls actually ate 5.23 pounds of hay per day for each hundred pounds of body weight.  That is interesting information to know in order to gauge our hay inventory.