Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1917 — THE DAIRY RATION [ARTICLE]

THE DAIRY RATION

Feeding Tables Hard to Follow on Account of Variation of Ingredients. [National Crop Improvement Servica.] For many years feeders have endeavored to use so-called standard tables showing the theoretical number of pounds each of so-called digestible protein, fats and carbohydrates. These methods are fatally defective for the following reasons: First, the tables call for so much digestible food. If there was suet? a thing as digestible food it might furnish a basis to go by, but digestible food is really apparently digestible food, in that it disappears in the body. Just what use is made of it is not always clear. Some of it turns into gas, some is converted into heat, and much of it is used in the labor of digesting and handling the food. In the case of straw and similar material, nearly all of its energy is used up in the’ labor of digesting it, leaving little or no net gain. Straw should be returned to the soil. Take two samples of dried barley grains, each containing the same amount of digestible food, and one will give twenty more therms or heat units than the other. One hundred pounds of digestible food derived‘from roughage is about equal to eighty pounds derived from so if we add together things which are unlike, we get no tangible results. It is like adding so many pounds to so many gallons. So, the digestible basis of figuring rations is very inaccurate. The correct way is, first, to ascertain how much protein and energy a cow needs to sustain life and keep weight. You can get this from your experiment station, and ascertain how much is necessary to make one pound of milk of a certain fat test, and then feed her as much protein and energy as is needed to maintain her and supply food for as many pounds of milk as she can make. This is a very difficult problem and few can do it, and we challenge any two men to tackle the same problem under the same conditions and arrive at the same result. We cannot tell unless we try to find out, that a cow will not give more milk on more feed, or maybe as much milk on less feed. So feeding is largely experimental, as no two cows are alike. However, the law of averages will hold, and the feeder can save all this trouble and much loss by feeding a ration which his experiment station has in most cases made, say three to, four pounds of milk for each pound of mixed feed. There is one thing certain. The more solids and fat in the milk, the more feed needed per pound of milk. So, a good mixed feed which is properly combined and all the roughage she will eat will greatly simplify your feeding problem and a very little experimenting will soon show, you how much concentrates each cow needs to produce a maximum yield. <