Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1875 — How Much Will a Cow Eat? [ARTICLE]

How Much Will a Cow Eat?

4 J. H. 3., Union City, Erie County, Pa., gives his experience as follows: Three days since I filled my barn with five acres of Hungarian hay, taken from ordinary ground, yield two and one-half tons per acre. 1 weigh all my milk, run a milk wagon, have one acre of sugar beets, etc. I find that eight co#vs will eat a wagonload of sowed corn in forty-eight hours. It is surprising the amount of food a hearty cow will eat in a few hours. The wind blew down my sowed corn about the last of July, 1874, and, as pastures were short, I thought it would be safe to feed it. So bad was it lodged that it could not be set up ,and cured. For eight cows I began wheeling the corn to them by The wheelbarrow-load. This was slow work, as the cows would consume one load while I was after the other. I then took it to them by the wagon-load, keeping the cows in at night. One small wagon-load would not suffice. I thought 1 would like to know how many pounds one cow could go through in a day; I weighed one load, and found it to i he 2,345 pounds, and on Saturday, July I 16, five p. m., the eight cows were set to | work. Let me say further that they were i not starved for forty-eight or twenty-four ! hours prior to this, but were well filled at the time of beginning the task. At seven p. m. the stalks were turned over to them until they were full, and enough for tlieir lunch during the night left within reach, i They were let out for water on Sunday, but I were not thirsty, only two indulging. They , were fed three times on Sunday. None would drink Monday. Again they were fed during Monday' At five p. m. the i whole load, 2,345 pounds, was consumed, an average of 146)4 pounds per day, oij each cow ate 293 pounds in the fortyeight hours, and were not uncomfortable either. The cows shrank, during the time, .about three pounds each. The corn sowed was Ohio mixed. At time of cutting it was fully ten feet high. From Aug. 1 my pastures have increased, owing to keeping cows off at night. I have observed, this summer, the more “ fodder” I fed the less milk my cows gave. I regard grass as better for milch-cows than fodder, unless you are making butter. I sell my milk in town, and, to produce it in large quantities, I feed “ brewers’ malt.” This, alone, produces a large flow of poor “lacteal fluid,” but, followed up with meal or com and oats ground together, it makes a large flow of good milk. I cannot afford, these hard times, to buy meal, so I feed sowed com (cut and fed green), which answers every purpose and is much cheaDer M. Rohing, a French chemist, insists that buttermilk will prolong life. Tlie lacticacid in it clears the cartilages, arteries, and valves of the heart of the detritus, corresponding to soot, found ip old persons.