Feeding in cold weather

Well, the snow is almost all melted again.  We're happy and the cows are happy.  This time of year is pretty hard on the cows.  They don't like the drastic changes from frigid to warm and back again.  This last dump of snow made me very grateful for the facilities that we have.  My husband has built me such great buildings for my cows.  They eat their feed inside and they can lay under cover if the weather is cold, rainy or snowy.   In bad weather, cows will typically eat less if their feed is out in the weather because they spend their time trying to keep warm.  If they eat less, they milk less.  Since our cows have shelter over their eating area, they don't lose feed (and milk) when the weather's bad.  We also feed our cows fresh feed twice a day and clean out the feed they didn't eat from the previous feeding.  The more often you give cows fresh feed, the more they eat.  They love fresh feed!  We feed the hay they didn't eat to the dry cows and heifers and they eat it right up.