The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-01-06
Feeding Dairy Cows.

We do not re collect of any time when
there was go much inquiry in regard to
the feeding of daily COWS as this winter,
and it arises from this very fact that
dairy produce is low, with no proba-
bility of any sharpladvances, and if
profits are made in the business, they
must come from cheaper food. 1t is CT
no immediate value to say, "Get better
cows" as they are with US as they are,
and to weed out the poor cows and get
in better ones is not the work only of
an hour, but of years. True the poor
COW can be " boycotted any day, but
her successor cannot be procured on
demand. One of the things that stands
in the way of successful economy in
feeding, is that market prices of feed
ing grains are not always proportionate
to their feeding value, but another real
obstacle is that too few dairymen un-
derstand the feeding qualities of the
food they raise or buy. The COW weigh
ing 1000 pounds, and giving good
flow of milk, needs fully two pounds of
digestible protein, thirteen pounds of
starch and sugar, and pound or so of
fat, and to get this will require about
thirty five pounds of raw food, but this
thirty. five pounds of food may be sadly
d ficient in the two pounds of protein
needed.
If the COW was fed on corn fodder,
hay and corn and cobmeal, or pure
meal, the amount of portein would not
exceed a pound, but if five pounds of
bran and a pound or two of linseed
meal was added, and the amount of
roughage somewhat decreased, the cow
would be well nourished. One must
learn that our coarse foods are larg ely
starch, and the needed prOteins must
be sought in our waste products of the
mills, such as bran, oil meal, cotton
seed meel, malt sprouts and the like,
and as a rule FROM six to eight pounds
of these mixed, will give all the por-
tein in day that the COW will need.
The COW, to do her best, must have pro
tein to make blood, feed the muscles
and nerves, and make lean meat.
Without it the gain is in fatty blubber
and decreased stores Of blood, and if it
is milk that is wanted, there must be
an abundance of blood, out of which to
elaborate the milk. Many farmer re-
fuses to buy bran and the oil meals,
preferring to feed his own homegrown
oats and corn, but the trouble is in this;
oat meal is but little better than corn
meal in protein, and if the corn meal is
ground with il, there has been large
addition to the starch contents of the
ration, when it already contained quite
starch enough for I'll feeding purposes.
The thing to do is TO exchange some
of the oats and corn for the strong pre-
tein foods. A ton of oat shorts, oat
dust, bran and the like, contain the
residue of the protein from several tons
of grain, and lit lie of the starch. The
economy of feeding the protein foods
mentioned is this: While supplying the
needed protein to the COW, they also
give back their full market value to the
store of fertility, and as in the case of
oat meal and cotton seed, largely in eX-
cess, so that the man who feeds his
own oats and corn meal, loses in value,
but if exchanging them as he me st al
ways can do and get "boot," and after
getting feeding value from them, gets
an increased manurial value that is
even more than the original cost price
of the food. Here is an economy that
should not be overlooked in these times
of close struggle to make profit in the
dairy. Feeds need to be studied about;
their elements of food value compared,
and then balanced up in accordance
with the needs of the COW, exchanges
made, and we have no doubt with a
greater margin of profit than now ex-
lists with so much haphazard feeding,
anu excessive feeding of homegrown
grains.-Practical Farmer.