TURNIPS AND MILK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 14 July 1925, Page 10

TURNIPS AND MILK

EXPERIMENTS IN THE COWS

PASTEURISATION AND TAINT

A writer in the British Journal of Agriculture says: In three experiments with cows a* Bangour, Edinburgh. Lauder and Fagan compared the effect on the yield and composition of milk caused bv substituting 721 bof turnips for 61b of protein-rich meals, in a normal ration of 401 b of turnips, 151 b of hay and 101 b of concentrates. As mighthave been expected the turnip ration produced rather _less milk, but, contrary to common - expectation, the more watery turnip ration in each experiment produced the milk with the higher fat content. Tho experiment suggests that, ‘‘the easily digestible carbo-hydrates contained in the turnips are especially suitable for fat formation.”

One of the objections often urged against the feeding of turnips to dairy cows is that they taint the milk. Dunne, writing of Danish practice, remarks that “the risk of imparting a bad flavour to the butter, popurlarly called ‘turnip flavour,’ disappeared as soon as the pasteurisation of milk became general. Since the advent of pasteurisation, the use of swede turnips as a food for ejairy cow® has been steadily extended in Denmark. . . Every Danish dairyman is convinced that roots are an indispensable constituent of an economic ration for cows. . . When roots can be added to the ration in liberal quantities the cost of the ration is reduced to the minimum, and a maximum profit is obtained.” It is significant that in recent years little has been heard of the matter of ‘turnip flavour.” This may be due to the wide extension of the pasteurisation process in the British wholemilk trade. Replies from some of the largest firms engaged in the milk trade, however, contain the opinion that pasteurisation does not completely eliminate the said flavour. The Dairy Manager of the Derby Co-operative Society, which retails about 4000 gallons of milk

per day, is of opinion that the aeration of tlie milk during its proper passage over the cooler is a means of eliminating “turnip taint.” In some districts there is a tendency to rely too much on hay as the basis of tlie winter rations of dairy cows. A critical study of such rations and their results in comparison with those which include a good allowance of roots, shows that there are limits to the usefulness of hay in milk production. Tlie feeding of large quantities of fibrous fodder taxes the digestive capacity and energy of the cow and reduces her yield. On fair pasture, the cow can extract the 15 lbs of starch equivalent required in the production of 3 gallons of milk by the consumption of 271 bof dry matter in pasture grass. But to extract tlie same quantity of rtutriment from hay, she would have to consume 421 b of dry matter, the digestion and utilisation of which would obviously divert the en®3'§y of tlie beast from her main function of milk production. In a good daily ration the starch equivalent per 1001 b of dry matter is about the same as that in pasture grass, to obtain which proportions it is necessary to limit the allowance of dry fibrous fodder to 15 ■or 171 b and supply the rest of the nutriment in the form of concentrates or roots.