Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1875 — Feeding Cut Fodder. [ARTICLE]

Feeding Cut Fodder.

It has been asserted by some farmers who have been accustomed to fatten meat cattle that the practice of feeding meal separately from hay, cornslalks and straw is just as satisfactory as to mingle the meal with qut fodder before feeding the stock. But numerous experiments conducted with care by intelligent farmers assure us that’it will be more economical every way to cut the fodder, ■wet it .and mingle the meal with it prior to feeding the mass to animals of any sort. The advantage will be more apparent when feeding meat cattle than when similar feed is- given to horses or mules. If the feed can be steamed the advantage will be still greater. In addition to our own experience in regard to this subject some recent experiments are herewith reported by E. W. Stewart, of the Live-Stock Journal, who writes: “ During the last ten years I have made the following tests: Fed a cow that had not eaten anything for sixteen hours four quarts of fine cornmeal, and killed her in fifteen minutes after it was eaten and found none of this meal in the?first stomach, but all in the fourth. Fed a steer under the same conditions four quarts of shelled corn and found it all in the fourth stomach. Again, fed a three-year-old heifer four quarts of heavy oats, killed her immediately, and found the oats nearly all in the fourth stomach. Made the same test upon a cow with soft corn in the ear and found seven-eighths in the fourth stomach and the balance in the first. Fed four quarts of fine cornmeal mixed with six quarts of cut hay to a steer, killed in half an hour, and found all in the first stomach. Fed, under same circumstances, six quarts of coarse bran and found most of it in the first stomach. Fed shelled corn mixed with twice its

bulk of cut hay and found nearly all the corn in the rumen or paunch. Fed a seven-months’ calf two quarts of shelled corn, killed it and found about one-half in first stomach.” In order to understand more fully the reason why meal should be mingled with cut fodder before the cattle are fed, those who feed cattle should be made familiar with the physiological constitution of the animal we propose to feed. Ruminants, such as neat cattle and sheep, have a compound stomach, divided into four compartments, each one intended by nature for a special purpose. When grass, hay, or other coarse food is eaten by cattle it passes, after slight mastication, down the esophagus into the rumen, or first stomach. Here it lies and macerates in mucus for a time, ’Constantly in motion by the contracting and expanding peristaltic action of the coats of the stomach, which softens and,, prepares it for remastication and the further work of digestion. From thence the food passes into the second stomach, or recticulum, where it is formed into balls or cuds, whence, by spasmodic action, the balls pass up the gullet into the mouth for remastication. After being properly masticated the cuds are swallowed, and pass along the esophagean canal to the third stomach, or maniplus, where the food undergoes an important change by being triturated between the manifolds, grinding down the vegetable fiber and preparing it for the fourth, or true digesting stomach. All these stomachs are certainly important in the digestive process of the ruminant. Food should, therefore, be given in such form that it may be directed to the first stomach, so that it may have the benefit of remastication. But nature has provided that only coarse herbaceous food, and fine food mixed with this, shall go to the first stomach; for when grain, whole or ground, is given alone, it goes to the fourth stoniach without the preliminary preparation of the other stomachs. By this means the fourth stomach will be so greatly overtaxed that it will not be able to perform its functions, and, besides endangering the health of the animal, a large percentage of food will be wasted. Where cattle at the West are fed bountifully on Indian corn, their droppings are frequently covered with kernels of com apparently whole and probably not 10 per cent, of the nutriment extracted. If this com had gone to the first stomach, been softened there and remasticated, it could not possibly have passed the ani-

mal in such an entire state. It has fre - quently been noticed that calves digest corn better than grown animals. This demonstrates conclusively that coarse bulky food only will-go to the first stomach, and that if it is desired to give the more concentrated grains, either whole or ground into meal, it must be combined with bulk food, so as to be carried along with it to the ruminating stomach. Hence it follows that every feeder who consults the health of his animals or economy in feeding will avoid using grain alone as the food of cattle.— N. Y. Herald.