The Requirements for Cow Feed

Cattle might not seem very particular about what they eat, but that doesn't mean the farmers who feed them shouldn't be. The United States government sets stringent requirements for cattle feed, as it does for any human or animal food, and many individual state governments issue additional regulations. Cattle nutritionists and livestock producers also rely on nutritional standards that have been regularly released since the 1800s to determine feed requirements for beef and dairy cows. Following these recommendations can greatly increase the productivity and profitability of any cattle farm.

  1. Ingredients and additives

    • Cattle feed contains many ingredients and additives that provide nutritional benefits, including grains, milling by-products, vitamins and fats or oils. While the FDA recognizes the necessity of such ingredients, it requires cattle feed manufacturers to follow federal guidelines for anything they add to their feed. The Official Publication of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) contains the most complete list of FDA-approved additives and their uses, according to the FDA. As with food processed for human consumption, manufacturers must list ingredients on their packaging, starting with the most prominent by weight.

    Medications in feed

    • While drugs are commonly added to cattle feed to improve herd health and ward off diseases, they are subject to more FDA regulation than other feed ingredients. The FDA requires any medications added to beef and dairy cattle to be safe for the animals and safe for humans that consume their meat and milk. To ensure that drugs in feed do not leave residue in the cow's body that could be harmful to humans, the FDA requires manufacturers to

      provide data showing: how much drug remaining in the animal’s system would be safe for people to consume, that the a person eating meat of milk from the animal would not consume more than the safe level of the medication, and if the drug is an antimicrobial drug, how much it contributes to antimicrobial resistance. Types of medications that the FDA allows in cattle and other animal feeds include: antimicrobials (such as antibacterial drugs) to fight infections, anticoccidials to fight coccidial parasites, hormonals to suppress female cows' "heat" cycle, anthelmintics to fight parasitic worms, sulfonamidics to fight certain types of infections, beta agonists to promote leanness in animals raised for meat and anti-bloating drugs to prevent swelling of the stomach compartments or intestinal tract of cows caused by excessive gas, according to the FDA Web site.

    Mad Cow Disease

    • In the wake of the controversy surrounding the sickening of two cows with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease, the FDA released regulations in 1997 prohibiting the use of most mammalian protein in feed intended for cattle, sheep and goats. The FDA enforces these regulations with inspections of all stages of feed processing. The FDA strengthened its regulations for mammalian by-products in all animal feed in 2008, but the new regulations did not introduce significant changes for feed intended for cattle.

    Nutritional requirements

    • Federal laws state only that animal feed should be pure and wholesome and should not be harmful to the animals that consume it. But cattle farmers generally rely on reports released by the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture for more specific information their cattle's nutritional requirements. Separate publications for beef and dairy cattle are revised regularly and contain copious data on the daily nutritional requirements for cows depending on their age and size. These guides also provide nutritional information for ingredients commonly found in cattle feed, ranging from alfalfa to yeast. While the original publications are quite lengthy, several public universities, including the University of Florida and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, publish summaries for local agricultural use, featuring instructions on how to use them and detailed tables.