WINTER FEEDING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 10

WINTER FEEDING

A BALANCED RATION. POINTS TO BE NOTED. A point sometimes overlooked is that winter rations require to be suitable not only nr quantity, but also m quality. it is not enougn to provide merely something which will fill the stomach —the required amount of nutriment must also be present. The feeding of roots alone as a ration illustrates the position. It means too much watery, bulky material in th e animal's diet, io force stock to sustain themselves on roots alone is very analogous to what feeding human beings on ice-cream alone would be. Poor nutrition would occur in each case, irrespective of the amount of material consumed. A contrasting diet is that provided by straw or poor hay—bulky, ary, and indigestible. While it is mainly the bulkiness of the roots which detracts from them as an exclusive ration, the straw or poor hay fails on account of both bulkiness and indigestibility.

Since it is so often practicable for farmers to resort to ensilage as a means of avoiding the production of poor hay, there is seldom any real reason why fanners should call upon their stock to consume poor, woody, weatherbeaten hay. in the feeding of silage to sheep 21b. to 31b. per head daily may be .looked upon as a substantial contribution to the animal’s ration for the purpose of supplementing a scant supply of fresh grass; while, if sheep are to be maintained on silage alone, which is unlikely the silage should be supplied at the rate of 51b. daily. This latter figure is interesting because it indicates that by providing a ton of grass silage one provides keep for, say, five ewes for three months. As an acre of reasonably good pasture will yield from five to seven tons of silage, it is clear that surplus summer grass converted into silage, for winter feeding will quite substantially increase the carrying capacity during the critical three months which over wide areas occurs from July to September. For instance, on the' above figures 20 acres of surplus grass put m reserve as silage would enable .from 500 to 700 extra ewes to be properly fed from the beginning of July to the end of September. In feeding silage to cows it is well to make a start by distributing a relaLively small amount, say, 21b. to 31b. per head daily. It will be possible to increase this quantity as the animals get used to the material. The quantity fed should be governed by the amount necessary to make good the shortage of grass. There is seldom occasion to exceed 301 b. or 401 b. daily. In winter feeding, if any pastures are showing signs of grass-grub infestation, but are not so seriously injured as to be beyond repair, then during the next few weeks the feeding of hay, silage, and roots may often with advantage be concentrated on those fields. At this stage the grubs, which for some ime previously have mostly been located at considerable depths, return to near the surface, where they are more subject to injury from trampling of stock. Further, the trampling and the extra fertility induced by the feeding-out seem to be of value in assisting injured plants on which remnants of roots remain to recover more readily. On pastures which have been made open by the ravages of the grub, the feeding of hay made from over-ma-ture herbage is at such times particularly useful, for such hay often contains viable seeds of valuable species, and the surface sowing of such seeds resulting from the feeding of the hay materially strengthens the sward.