MORE BUTTER-PAT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 12, 16 January 1933, Page 3

MORE BUTTER-PAT

FEEDING ALFALFA MEAL

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 22nd November. A correspondent of "The Times" sends an account of experiments-that have been, carried out by the Gloucestershire Milk Recording Society. Over two years ago (says the correspondent) :we hoard of an American theory whereby the butter-fat in milk could.be raised by adding sun-dried alfalfa meal to the cows' daily rations. For the last two years our herd of -Guernsey cows have had lib of South African sun-dred alfalfa meal added to each cow's daily ration, with the most amazing results. Last March our veterinary surgeon, Mr. Margarson, succeeded in getting for us a cow that had brought her owner to the verge of prosecution for supposedly adding water to the milk—a Shorthorn, giving five gallons of milk' a day, six weeks from ,her calving, and with an average of 216 per cent, butter-fat evening . milking. No» one <y/er saw worse milk than, that cow produced on her arrival here on 19th March. When she had settled down we put her on the alfalfa ration, and in a fortnight her milk recorded 4.0 per cent, evening, 3.2 per cent, morning. She has been tested regularly since then; her September records shows 5.6 per cent, and 3.6 per cent, respectively. She is due to calve early in January, and we all await her cream Jest with vast interest. The Gloucestershire Milk Eecording Society have tried out a lot of other recorded herds, Shorthorns, Friesians, etc. The Friesians were given l£lb of- the meal. They have found with every cow or massed herd the results have been the same, a gradual increase in butter-fat after a fortnight's feeding. The effects of the alfalfa feeding are cumulative, and fed continuously it gives a delicious flavour to the milk, cream, and butter, and also improves all three vastly in colour. Wo won the second prize for cream at the Dairy Show this year, and reserve last year, and as our herd are not pedigree or specially bred in any way one can but attribute it to the alfalfa feeding.