What does it cost to feed livestock through winter, per head?

The arithmetic

1. Pounds per head per day. Hay at 3% of body weight for goats and sheep (Arkansas FSA-9613), 2.5% for cattle (Cornell); a finishing pig eats 5–7 lb of feed a day (Wisconsin); a laying hen a quarter pound (Alabama, Oklahoma State).
2. Add waste to the hay. About 15% from a feeder, 30% on the ground (NC State measured 3–13% for small squares; Oregon State's range runs to 50%). A 150-lb goat's 4.5 lb becomes 5.2 lb bought.
3. Price per pound = bale or bag price ÷ its weight. Cornell's small squares: $4–6 for about 50 lb, 8–12¢ a pound. Its 4×4 rounds: $120–150 a ton, 6–7.5¢. A $20 50-lb bag of feed is 40¢ a pound.
4. Multiply. 5.2 lb × 8–12¢ = 41–62¢ a goat a day; × 120 days = $50–75 for the winter. Then times your head count.

What changes your number

• Bale type. Cornell's prices put a small-square pound at half again the price of a round-bale pound. If you can move a round, it is the cheapest change on this page.
• Waste. Going from ground feeding to a feeder takes the waste line from about 30% to 15% — the same saving as finding hay 13% cheaper.
• Days. 120 days on the Gulf Coast, 200 in New York (Cornell). Count from the day pasture stops carrying them.
• Cold. Cattle have a published curve: about 1% more energy per °F of wind chill below 32°F with a dry coat, 2% per °F below 59°F wet (Oklahoma State). Wind breaks and dry bedding are a feed saving.
• Stage. A doe in her last trimester eats about a third more than a dry doe; in milk, about half again (Arkansas). Late-winter kidding and lambing land on the most expensive weeks.
• Pigs grow, so feed scales with gain. Wisconsin plans 3 lb of feed per lb of gain: 600 lb from 50 to 250 lb. A pig finished in winter costs whatever that 600 lb costs, plus what the cold adds.

Hay-fed animals — cost per head

Small squares at 8–12¢ a pound ($4–6 a bale, about 50 lb) and 4×4 rounds at 6–7.5¢ ($120–150 a ton), both Cornell 2024. The 120-day column runs from rounds at the low price to small squares at the high price.

Grain-fed animals — cost per head

Pig intake from Wisconsin (5–7 lb a day for growing-finishing pigs); hen intake from Alabama and Oklahoma State (about ¼ lb). The bag prices are examples, not a survey.

Run your own numbers

Pick a species, put in your head count and what you actually pay, and it gives you the per-head-per-day figure and the season total.

Where the money actually goes

For hay-fed animals almost all of the winter bill is hay, and the hay bill is mostly two choices: the bale size you buy and the feeder you put it in. For pigs and poultry it is the bag price, and the lever is feed waste at the feeder — a trough that lets them bill feed onto the ground is the same as a price increase.