cows extremely dry in dung

wexf0rd

the dairy cows are extremely dry in their dung. the dung is extremely hard. they are on ad lib silage. the silage is dry but they shouldnt be this dry. they have plenty of access to clean fresh water in the shed. They are also on 1kg/head a day of ration. Any ideas what the problem is?
Thanks

greysides

When I've seen very dry dung it's either been a high fibre diet (hay diet) or delayed passage of gut content (milk fever).

fatoftheland

dry dung is sometimes a sign of low overall protein diets. otherwise some wheat in the diet should get things moving better

boroboy

salt blocks or fine salt in bucket helps.they drink more water!

nige2000

fatoftheland wrote: »

dry dung is sometimes a sign of low overall protein diets. otherwise some wheat in the diet should get things moving better

exactly high fibre/ low protein / high dry matter or a combination will result in dry dung but unless your animals are failing i wouldn't worry about it, if they are getting thin some starch will help i.e. wheat/barley feeding protein will do very little for a dry cow only loosen the dung.
usually a dry cow in reasonable condition i.e body condition score 3 + will be fine on silage and minerals more often than not they may get heavier
hope this helps

also milk fever someone mentioned above it effects the use of the muscles and the digestive system uses muscles to move food through the system therefore the food would move more slowly through the system causing more absorption of water = dryer dung

blue5000

OP have you seen them drinking water? There might be stray voltage stopping them drinking. Maybe tie up the ballcock overnight and see how much they drink that night?