Chillai Kalan — Feeding and Shelter Plan for the 40 Hardest Days

Chillai Kalan, the forty days from 21 December to the end of January, is when the valley's animals are tested. Water freezes in the trough overnight, the sun barely warms the shed, and an animal spends a large share of its feed simply staying alive. The farms that come through it with milk and condition intact run a plan, not a hope.

The feeding rule for the forty days

Cold is a feed cost. Below the animal's comfort zone, every degree of cold burns energy that would otherwise be milk or growth. The practical rule:

• Dry fodder up by a fifth. Fibre fermenting in the rumen is the animal's own stove; a cow on more chaffed fodder stays warmer from the inside.
• Keep the compound feed matched to milk, not cut. The temptation in winter is to save on the bag because milk has dipped. The dip is the cold; cutting feed deepens it. GOKA Green exists for exactly the no-green weeks, and milking cows stay on GOKA Star or Challenger 8000 at their calculated quantity.
• Mineral mixture every day. Straw-heavy winter rations are mineral-poor, and the pica, weak calves and poor heats of March start here.
• Lukewarm water twice a day, without fail. A cow that drinks less milks less. This is the single cheapest thing on the list and the most often skipped.

Shelter

• Deep, dry bedding; the knee test every morning where the animals lie.
• Draughts blocked at animal height, air moving above.
• Calves in the warmest corner with a jacket of straw bales around their pen.
• No wet animals: dry any animal that gets rained or snowed on before it lies down.

The animals to watch

• Fresh cows and late-pregnant cows: GOKA Transition −21 and +21 are not optional in Chillai Kalan; milk fever and ketosis spike in the cold.
• Calves under two months: hypothermia kills in hours. Warm milk, deep bedding, no draughts.
• Old and thin animals: they feel the cold first; give them the extra fodder and the sheltered spot.
• Goats: leafy hay and dried tree leaves, pellets for the pregnant does, and a dry floor above all.

Chillai Khurd and Chillai Bachha

The twenty days of Chillai Khurd and ten of Chillai Bachha that follow are milder but wetter. Keep the plan running until the green starts showing in March; February mud is as hard on feet and udders as January ice.