Cattle feed calculator for a balanced daily ration
A milking cow or buffalo needs enough dry matter to fill her, enough energy (measured here as TDN, total digestible nutrients) to keep her body going and make milk, and enough crude protein. This cattle feed calculator works out all three from body weight, daily milk yield and fat, then checks the ration you actually feed — green fodder, dry fodder and concentrate in kilograms as fed — and can suggest the kg of straw and concentrate that balance it.
Requirements follow the NRC dairy feeding standard, feed values come from published analyses, and the familiar Indian thumb rule — about 1 kg of concentrate for every 2.5 litres of cow milk or 2 litres of buffalo milk — is shown beside it as a cross-check. Add your own feed analysis and prices to see the cost per litre of milk.
How to use the cattle feed calculator
- Choose cow or buffalo and enter body weight, milk per day and fat %. No weighbridge? Open the tape section and estimate weight from heart girth and body length.
- Tick first lactation or the last two months of pregnancy if they apply, and adjust dry matter intake (2.5% of body weight is a common starting point).
- In the ration, pick the green fodder, dry fodder and concentrate you have and type the kg you feed per day. Use Custom feed for a lab analysis or a feed bag label.
- Press Suggest dry fodder & concentrate to balance dry matter and energy around your green fodder.
- Read the energy, protein and dry matter meters and warnings, then copy the ration. Add ₹ per kg to see the daily feed cost.
Cattle Feed Calculator features
Requirement from a feeding standard
Maintenance and milk requirements for TDN and crude protein from the NRC dairy standard, with milk fat taken into account.
Indian feeds built in
Napier, berseem, maize, jowar and oat fodder, wheat and paddy straw, kadbi, compound feed, bran, rice polish and oil cakes.
Simple balancing
Solves the kg of dry fodder and concentrate that meet dry matter and energy exactly, then checks protein.
Thumb-rule cross-check
Shows the concentrate a field rule of thumb would give for the same animal.
Cost per litre
Optional prices per kg give the daily feed cost and cost per litre of milk.
How the requirement is calculated
Maintenance. The NRC (1989) table for mature lactating cows gives 7.58 lb TDN and 0.98 lb crude protein a day for a 1,000 lb cow. Those figures follow TDN (kg) = 0.035 × body weight0.75 and CP (g) = 0.98 × body weight in kg to within 1% across the table. Cows in their first lactation get 20% more, as the NRC table advises.
Milk. Each kg of milk needs 0.322 kg TDN and 86 g CP at 4% fat, rising to 0.385 kg and 105 g at 5.5%. Litres are converted at 1.03 kg per litre. Buffalo milk at 6–8% fat is extrapolated along the same line, which gives values close to those quoted for buffaloes.
Example. A 400 kg cow giving 10 L at 4% fat needs 3.13 kg TDN for maintenance plus 3.32 kg for milk = 6.45 kg TDN, 392 + 886 = 1,278 g CP, and about 10 kg dry matter at 2.5% of body weight.
Feed values used
DM and CP of the Indian feeds are from Kumar et al. (2015, Veterinary World), TDN from Kansas State University table MF3648, and berseem, napier and straw values from Feedipedia (DE for ruminants converted with the NRC rule DE = 0.04409 × TDN%). Compound feed assumes the 20% CP minimum of IS 2052 Type 2 and 0.70 kg TDN per kg as fed. Late-cut or badly stored fodder is poorer; use a lab analysis when you have one.
| Feed | DM % | CP % of DM | TDN % of DM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hybrid napier / elephant grass, green | 17.9 | 9.7 | 55.3 |
| Berseem (बरसीम), green | 12.5 | 19.9 | 66.1 |
| Maize (मक्का) green fodder | 15.96 | 9.51 | 67.3 |
| Sorghum / jowar (चरी) green fodder | 18.81 | 7.29 | 60.1 |
| Oats (जई) green fodder | 11.39 | 8.8 | 61.1 |
| Wheat straw (गेहूं का भूसा) | 90.13 | 3.39 | 45 |
| Paddy straw (पुआल / पराली) | 92.8 | 4.2 | 39 |
| Sorghum stover / kadbi (कड़बी) | 86 | 6 | 49 |
| Berseem hay | 88.6 | 15.7 | 56.4 |
| Compound cattle feed (pellet, 20% CP on label) | 89 | 22.47 | 78.65 |
| Maize grain, crushed | 92.71 | 9.51 | 87.6 |
| Wheat bran (चोकर) | 91.33 | 14.46 | 71.9 |
| Rice polish | 88.5 | 12.8 | 83.4 |
| Mustard cake (सरसों की खल) | 92.77 | 37.29 | 71.1 |
| Groundnut cake (मूंगफली की खल) | 93.18 | 41.54 | 80.8 |
| Soybean meal | 91.41 | 45.59 | 81.1 |
Thumb rules and limits
- Concentrate: about 1 kg per 2.5–3 kg of cow milk (Kerala Agricultural University) or per 2 kg of buffalo milk (NDDB guidance), on top of about 1.5 kg for maintenance; add about 1 kg in the last two months of pregnancy.
- Keep at least 40% of the dry matter from fodder: more grain than that risks acidosis.
- Roughly 20 kg of green grass or 6–8 kg of legume fodder can replace 1 kg of concentrate for protein (KAU).
- Minerals, vitamins and bypass protein are not balanced, and this is not a least-cost formulation. For milk pricing, see the milk fat and SNF calculator.
Cattle Feed Calculator FAQ
How much feed does a cow need per day?
About 2.5–3% of her body weight as dry matter: 10–12 kg for a 400 kg cow. As fed, that is typically 20–40 kg of green fodder, a few kg of straw and 1 kg of concentrate for every 2.5 L of milk on top of a maintenance amount.
How much concentrate per litre of milk?
The common rule is 1 kg of compound feed for every 2.5–3 litres of cow milk and every 2 litres of buffalo milk, plus about 1.5 kg for maintenance. The cattle feed calculator shows this alongside its nutrient-based ration.
What is TDN?
Total digestible nutrients: the digestible fibre, protein, starch and fat of a feed (fat counted 2.25 times), a widely used measure of feed energy.
How do I estimate a cow’s weight without a scale?
Measure heart girth and body length in cm: weight (kg) ≈ girth² × length ÷ 10,840. A 170 cm girth and 150 cm length gives about 400 kg.
Does the calculator work for buffaloes?
Yes. Choose Buffalo: the fat default changes to 7%, the milk requirement is extrapolated for high-fat milk and the thumb rule uses 1 kg per 2 litres.
Is this a substitute for a nutritionist?
No. It is a planning aid using average values. Your veterinary officer or a dairy cooperative ration-balancing adviser can test your fodder and fine-tune the ration.