FEEDING FOR MILK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18457, 21 July 1923, Page 16

FEEDING FOR MILK.

Writing; in. the"' British Agricultural Gazette, on the subject of the feeding of ! dairy cows, Mr. W. M. Tod, M.A., says:— • Good -cows are essential, of course, to big yields, for no ;'. feeding will make a naturally poor milker produce a large yield/ ' On the other hanu\, there Us .many a cow that would give twice the yield she does, if she were fed up to what she' could. ! give. ; : Quite recently I came across a case where a man had a good cow, and he started feeding her with. 3£ lb. '-. of ;a • suitable meal per . gallon, and to his astonishment she gave him ' 2000 gallons .in the' 365 days. He had no idea he' had such a cow; but she never I had anything else but hay (or grass when : out),. and'' the proper quantity of meal •i per day at- the rate of 3£!b. per gallon, I based on her previous, day's yield. There ! is no. reason why many other people could not do the same* thing, for there is no theory about the' matter, at all. It has been proved over arid over '- again that, once having provided for the maintenance of the cow, she will produce milk up K) the utmost limit, of her capacity .if she u given a food. supplying ; her with 0.61b. ■ of digestible . albuminoid and • l£lb, cf digestible carbp hydrate for each gallon of •milk she produces-. It does .not matter ii' she requires -301b. of cake and meal a day; she will pay for it, and pay for it well. .-.-'-' To give 2000 gallons in 365 days, an average of nearly 5£ gallons a day, this cow must hive been giving at lezst 8 gallons a. day when at her best, probably- more, and .would therefor© be getting 281b.. of meal or more per day, and yet, look at -the' cost of her milk! Taking it that she cost Is a day for maintenance during"2oo days in winter, and 4d a day for 165 days • when at grass, her ■maintenance cost £12 15s. -'•■.. Again, assuming that she was. given 3£lb. of meal for every gallon she produced, summer and winter, and that the meal cost 4£d (although as a matter of fact is was slightly less), the meal for 2000 gallons would cost £37 10s, or a total of £50 5s for food; and this works out at almost exactly 6d a gallon. No one could wish ! for much cheaper feeding than that, and I it was actually done with a 2000-galllonor! It is perfectly evident' to anyone who thinks about these facts that the chief determining factor in the cost of milk production is the cost of the maintenance th ft nd i he lower the average yield of the S«f 5v gre^ter the • ™Atance of the cost of tins maintenance diet. I know ""V Ailkis becau s r+Z a gauon *° produce, solely I very little mZfI m ° f those her u> very little more than one gallon «pr ccw per day, taking all the coW of the hero, dry and otherwise. S n j? the strangest thing of all about it is that those farmers are congratulating"themselves that tfiifty are feeding cheaply, because .«£ rows get little else than hay and roots and they spend nothing on cake?- Thev appear to forget that it'is just hay^ard roots that are the expensive 3 part "of the feeding, and that every lib. of cak« if. properly fed, reduces the cost of the milk Yet it is so.