The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-08-10
Feeding Experiments.

The Oregon experiment station in
bulletin 81, of May, among other mat
ter, sends out accounts of several in
teresting experiments in feeding,
which we conuense for our readers.
The first is test of five different ra-
lions for mich cows. Ration ! con-
sisted of twenty-five pounds corn sill
age, ten pounds clover hay, six pounds
bran. Ration 2: Silage and hay the
same, five pounds bran, three pounds
oat chop. Ration 3: Forty pounds
corn silage, five pounds clover hay.
Ration 4: Fifteen pounds clover hay,
five pounds bran, two pounds of oat
chop, eight pounds of carrots. Ra-
ton s.: Fifteen pounds of clover hay,
five pounds bran, three pounds oat
chops, two pounds shorts.
Both silage and clover are claimed
to have been very good, and in Ration
| and the silage is all fed at noon.
In Ration one-half was fed at noon,
and the rest with hay in morning and
at night. In all cases the hay and
grain equally divided between morn
inc and night feeding.
The various feeds were valued at
market rates there per ton. Clover
hay Sc, silage $3.50, bran SO, shorts
$16, oat chop SIS, carrots, So. Four
cows were used in the trial, which was
for ten days, with intervals of five days
between the changes, aud each COW
consumed practically the same amount.
With Ration 1 the cost of feeding
each for 10 days was 70 cents, and the
cost of butter fat was 1914 cents per
pound, with gain in weight for two
cows and loss on one, amounting to
five pounds gain on four cows.
On Ration the cost of feeding for
10 days was 10.1 cents per cow and
1913 cents per pound of butter fat,
with loss of 25 pounds weight on
three cows. On Ration 3 the cost of
feed per cow for 10 days was 40 cents,
and cents per pound on butter fat,
with shrinkage in weight from 30 TO
45 pounds per COW, or 145 pounds on
four cows. Ration 4 cost SO cents per
COW, and 1871 cents per pound of but
ter fat. One COW gained 20 pounds in
weight and another 10 pounds, while
another lost Is pounds, and one neither
gained or lost. Ration cost 11.3
cents per COW for 10 days, and ia
cents per pound of butter fat, but one
COW gained 10 pounds, another 20, and
the two others 25 pounds each.
The largest amount of butter fat was
from Ration 2, and the smallest from
Ration 4. Rations and produced
about the same amount, but the loss of
weight in one case and the great gain
in the other made them unsatisfactory
rations. Ration l WAS considered the
most satisfactory, as the weights of the
animals were not much varied, and
butter fat cost about 90 cents varied,
and butter fat costs 1914 cents, which
would make the butter cost about 90
cents pound, should be thought good
enough when butter would sell at 20
cents.
They also tested last winter the COM
paraiive value of sugar beets, carrots
and mangels, the hay, silage and grain
given being the same in each test
They found practically little difference
in their feeding value. The cost per
pound of butter was greater in this
than in previous experiments, owing
TO cost of wheat and bran it being 1872
cents when carrots were fed, 1874
cents on the sugar beets and 49, on
the mangels. There was no precept-
ible difference in flavor between the
butter made when beets or carrots
were fed, but when the mangels were
given the butter had not as fine flavor,
falling off two points in the scoring.
There was an average gain in weight
on the sugar beets and carrots, with an
average loss on the mangels, yet one
cow gained on each. She was grade
Jersey, four years old. Twenty.three
to twenty -four pounds of the roots
were given each cow daily during the
test.-Mirror and Farmer.