FEEDING DAIRY COWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18585, 18 December 1923, Page 14

FEEDING DAIRY COWS.

THE BALANCING RATION. THE BALANCING RATION. MR. F. J. SAXBY'S EXPERIMENTS. Many fine butter-fat records ,it is stated have been put -up in this country without undue use of expensive concentrated < feeds, but not under " ordinary " herd conditions. They "have' been put up by reason of the wise owner feeding his cows, as they should be fed, realising that the best of ail milk-pro-ducing food in the world is the ample supply of succulent plans food that could be grown on the farm itself, and that where such food was available only a very small amount of concentrated food was necessary for maximum production. The digestive system of the cow demands a considerable amount of bulky food, and for the cow fed under the best New Zealand conditions, running in the field all the year round, any concentrated food above the small amount required would only lead to a disturbance of her digestive system and do more harm than good. A very successful breeder of milkrecord stock, Mr.. F. J. Saxby, of Ohaupo, recently gave a detailed description of how he* fed his cows which were being semi-otHcially tested. As the whole object of feeding cows was to get the mcst out of them at the lowest cost, it appeared to Mr. Saxby that providing an abundant supply of nutritious, appetising food grown on the farm was not always quite sufficient both for heavy milk production and the best bodily maintenance. Something, therefore, would be required to help the cow to maintain her bodily vigour without drawing too much on the food required for mere milk production. Mr. Saxby also realised that systematic work was imperative and that the question of feeding required constant study if the best was to be got out of it. Mr. Saxby contended that the maintenance of good-quality, milk-producing feed was th© reason why he had been able to establish good records on twice-a-day milking. The Value of Good Pasture.

Recognising that good pasture was the basis of' dairying and that good pasture was dependent largely on the use of manures, Mr. Saxby's farm has for the past ten years received 2Jcwt. to 3cwt. of n.anure per acre per annum, and the paddocks were limed alternately, so that every third year each paddock got lOcwt. of dressing of lime in the carbonate form. A variety of manures were used according to the market and the purpose for which the paddocks had to be used. Tile draining was used wherever necessary, thus raising the temperature of the soil,. and as the farm was in an exposed position Mr. Saxby had planted from three to four thousand trees for shelter. ■ Onethird of the farm was in temporary pasture and rotation crops. A mixture which Mr. Saxby frequently used was 401b. of Western Wolths, 61b. of red clover, £ bushel oats and 101b. of prairie grass, the mixture being spring sown, f course the seasons had to be studied, but he usually sowed his first turnips, Mammoth Purple Tops, about September 20, on ridges. About the same time Mr. Saxby sowed a paddock of temporary pasture, and another area of pasture a short time later. - These helped to hold the cows agakist the period when the ordinary pastures were going to seed and until the turnips were ready. Last season Mr. Saxby started feeding turnips before Christmas. They were not matured but he found it easier to keep up the milk flow than to recover it once it had fallen. The first autumn grass or oats were always sown before the end of February, and last season being a wet one, Mr. Saxby Mowed a paddock before the end of January, which was a successful experiment. The test cows also got two or three hours' grazing on lucerne. Green maize, green peas and millet had been tried, but for the last two seasons the use of these had been abandoned. To supply the cows with an abundance of succulent' pasture and roots was Mr. Saxby's aim, and, as in the case of many other testing breeders, he used daily 4 to 5 pounds of a mixture, four parts of bran and one of oats, to balance the usual feed. With regard to keeping the Nation balanced, it was a recogised fact that a cow has a natural producing capacity, she could be fed to yield below this capacity not above it. Feeding Hay to Dairy Cows.

Mr Saxby had often heard people complaining that their cows would not eat hay when the spring grass came away. He found, however, by putting the cows first thing in the morning after milking into a bare paddock with the hay spread out, that if this were well cured, they would eat it until fairly late in the season. In an ordinary season hay had been fed in November. As an instance of what could be done by this method Mr. Saxby had an old ■ cow whose teeth were gone. . Her normal test was generally well over five per cent., but for the two seasons she tested as low as 2.8 per cent, in one spring month. In the third season Mr. Saxby adopted the expedient just explained and thus checked the worst* stage of scouring. The cow's latest test when 17 years old was 4.6 per cent. She qualified for her S.O. certificate, 4381b. of fat at 17 years, the oldest age at qualifying of any cow in New Zealand. She was the dam of the best heifer of all breeds on twice-a-'day milking, Alfalfa Pancy, 6901b. of fat as a junior two-year-old. She was also the great grand-dam tof Mr. John Hale's best cow, Signal's Lioness, 7261b. of fat. These figures were given to make it clear that the low test in spring of this fine old cow was not due to inferior blood but to ill-balanced feeding. Mr. Saxby did not.claim to be an authority on breeding, but he was fully convicea that the best methods of feeding are useless unless the cattle are of the right class.