SOME FEEDING POINTS

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 51

SOME FEEDING POINTS

In handling live stock there is no point of greater importance than a knowledge of how to feed, nor is there anv on which the capacities of owners are more widely at variance. Some feed with brains and others with the scoop shovel, and there are all grades of feeding ability between these two extremes. Feeding is the point in environment most largely influential in improvement, and is also one on which profit very largely depends. As to the quality of feed employed, it should be the best of Jts kind. Smutted, rusted, or otherwise diseased grains, mouldy hav or forage, spoiled meals, rank, sour swills, etc., may seedn to cause no specific harm at the time, but they always detract from that perfect thrift and healthfulness of the digestive organs which enables an animal to do its best. The feed being good of its kind, the right- kind should be used, having in view the purpose for which it is fed. Feed stuffs are broadly divided into those which make fat and those which make muscle or growth. Animals do not change or even compound the foods tloey consume into needed forms ; they merely appropriate or assimilate the elements which the plants on which they feed have appropriated. For example, there can be no bone-making unless the food contains a sufficient quantity of theMnineral elements of which the bone is composed; muscle and growth cannot be made unless the food contains the substances which enter into the making of muscle and growth. It is, therefore, necessary that the kind of food chosen, shall be appropriate to the purpose in view. If young, growing animals are fed there) must be enough nitrogenous matter to make muscle and growth, and enough mineral matter to make frame, and if the foods at hand do not contain them they should be added in the form of nitrogenous by-products, asnes, etc. Even a moulting hen needs a different food from that given at other seasons, or she cannot make feathers. Pigs lose scale, become fine in bone, and turn to fat if fed on fattening food during the time when they ought to, be growing. Milk cows can only produce profitable quantities of milk when they are fed on milk-producing foods. Large losses in the pig crop result from improper feeding during the period of gestatiog, and just before and after farrowing time. It is an old maxim that “You cannot get an oat trot out of a thistle diet," and the maxim applies to all kinds of feeding. You cannot have fat, or muscle, or bone, or scale, or milk, or any specific thing desired, without feeding appropriate'food, because the animal does not create anything, but only assimilates what there is in the food.

Quantity is important in feeding. To produce results of any dlesirable kind, feeding should be liberal. So much is required for the maintenance of the animal, and it is only the quantity that is digested and assimilated after this food of maintenance; is secured which produces the owner’s share in the proceeds from the feeding. At the same time this idea should be handled with' judgment-. A sow that is heavily fed iust before and after farrowing will be pretty sure to lose her young pigs. Cows thus fed are very likely to have garget. There are no feeding principles that it is not constantly necessary to modify by the use of the feeder’s judgment-. A great many little ailments, not arising to the dignity of a disease, but nevertheless interfering seriously with thrift, are due to over-feeding, which is liberal feeding carried to excess. A good rule is' to give the animal all it will eat up clean, but even this must be modified by judgment, too- Where animals have' been run down, they must be brought up gradually : and in getting animals on full feed they must not be given all they will eat, hut must be brought to full feed by steps. Food left over is a hint to reduce the ration. If much is left over it is a further hint that something is wrong, and the animal needs locking afteir.

With food of good quality, of the right kind for the purpose, and sufficient but no more than sufficient in quantity, an-

other important point is variety. The feeder himself does not like tc, sit down to the) table day after day to the same dish. He might not object to beans for fifty or sixty meals in succession, but he would not- like them as a steady diet. The animal is in just the same condition. It needs variaty, or food l will pall upon it. The food must be properly prepared in view of the digestion of the animal. It is hardly worth while to feed millet seed, for instance, without grinding, for the digestion of no animal will reduce it. A yearling lamb gets along very nicely on whole grain, but the.ageid, brokentoothed ewe will not fatten unless the grain be ground. Steers with hogs to follow may not waste a great deal of ■ whole corn, but- wheli cattle are fed whole corn under other circumstances the waste is large. To the farrowing sow, both before and after, thin gruels do the sow and litter good, while corn is detrimental to both the sow and pigs. There are other points connected with palatability and succulence, etc., which special circumstances render cf greater or less importance. \V nerever animals are to be pushed, palatability counts for a great- deal, because it stimulates appetite and increases the consumption of food, which, however, must-not be pushed beyond the point of capacity to digest. Finally, aside from the general rules of feeding, every animal has an individuality of its own. So far as possible this should be studied. It cannot be studied in the case of a hundred steers in the fe'ed lot, but it can be studied in- the case of a herd of dairy cows. So far as it is possible to take individuality into account it should be done. There is a great deal to be learned on the subjelct of feeding, and one of the most important things to learn is the mingling of judgment and common sense with the feeding.—“ London Live Stock Journal."