[colliewoman]

Would a couple of small cows need to be fed? Something like shetlands or dexters?
This is future planning, assuming I have plenty of grass and a barn for the wet season (can hardly call it winter here!) to save the ground getting a pounding, how much cake would they need and how often?
When in the barn, how much hay/silage?
My ideal should it ever happen would be a cow with a calf at foot, and milking her. This is going to be several years in the planning, but I want to do it right and only really have experience with beef cattle in large numbers?
Thankies in advance 

[SallyintNorth]

For a suckler cow, larger than your Shetlands or Dexters would be, we work on half a small square bale of hay per day, a bit more for the first or two month after calving.  No cake; maybe a little for a heifer with her first calf for a week or two after calving.

If you take milk on top of what she needs for the calf, I'd feed her cake to get the amount of spare milk you need.  The rule of thumb is 1kg cake per 2L milk (over and above what her own calf needs.)

My Jersey rears her own plus bought-in calves, plus gives milk for the house, gets ad lib hay / silage when indoors, and between 2 and 4kg cake a day; I vary the cake according to how much milk I want, how many calves there are, and whether they and the cow seem well-fed.  She has one bought-in calf alongside her own Jersey calf, then as each set-on is weaned, another is put on.  I usually take a couple of litres for the house, so she's probably being asked for 6-8L above what her own calf needs in the first few months, and then less extra as she'll mostly have just one calf and be giving me my 2L - by then she needs very little cake, just enough to keep her happy while she's being milked.

Hope that helps!

[colliewoman]

Spot on thanks

[Rosemary]

Ours have been out all winter; we have sandy soil so they don't make a mess. The three (two in-calf heifers and the yearling bullock) have been getting 20kg hay daily between them plus access to a Rockie, rock salt and a Crystalyx Standard. They do use the lick but not like the sheep. The bullock is pretty skinny but he should fill out once the grass comes in (hope so anyway - or we'll have rib eye of beef without the beef  )

Last winter, as calves, they got 12kg of hay per day between them plus about 1kg of calf mix each.

I'll let you know how things go once they calve. We plan to let them rear their own calf and we'll take some for the house.

Shetlands are pretty thrifty 

[SallyintNorth]

Good point Rosemary - my Jersey has access to a Green Crystallix at all times, especially around calving (before and after.)  If she's hammering the lick it may mean she needs [more] cake.  And she demands rock salt to be available too.