STRAW AS FOOD FOR STOCK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1894, 9 March 1888, Page 7

STRAW AS FOOD FOR STOCK.

It is only in very isolated localities indeed that straw is now so wastefully used as it generally was but three or four years ago. In districts with railway conveniences, and especially on farms where only a few head of cattle arc kepi, (he straw is carefully stacked and sent compressed to market during the winter. In remote districts straw cannot thus be converted into a little readymoney ; it is therefore used partially for fodder, but largely for litter and the soaking up of the impure drenchings in wet yards and the approaches to the outhouses on the farm. This is, however, a very indifferent way of converting material to a useful purpose, for the comparative worthlessness of mere rotted straw as a manure has been long and well known. Many farmers, again, trust to the straw stacked on a bare pasture to cairy the dry cows and young beasts through the winter months, but the poor brutes exist in a state of semistarvation, and are, of course, unprofitable. So early as 1804 Arthur Young put the case explicitly, as experienced stockowners know. He said : " The common cases of straw feeding are of cows and young cattle just brought in and not yet put to fatting. With regard to cows, the food is altogether insufficient, and lets them, down so much in llesh that when they calve and are expected to yield productively they lose a considerable time, and that perhaps the most valuable, before they get into flesh and give their usual quantity of milk ; but if they had been well and sufficiently wintered, they are half summered, and yield at once adequately. For young cattle it is still worse management, for their growth is stunted, and they never tecover it. Insofar as regards the quality of the farm - yard dung, this reasoning becomes more forcible, for from straw-fed cattle the farmer will at the end of winter (lad, perhaps, a large heap of so poor a quality

that it will go but little way in manuring his fields." While too much reliance on straw for winter feeding muse be strongly condemned, its value as an auxiliary food is unquestionable. Growers of turnips for fattening beasts in winter place much dependence on the straw stack ; and, probably from observing how eagerly sheep on turnips would rush to a stack, suggested the chaffing of straw for them— a practice which has greatly extended within the past tv/o years. Experience has convinced those who have adopted the plan that the root crop goes much farther, while the sheep thrive better and cut superior fleeces. Two winters ago an extensive grazier finding his lands overstocked because of a partial failure of the turnip crop, and failing to sell a poition of the flock, had recourse to chaffed straw to help through tho strait. The results in regard to the condition of the sheep and the clip of wool in spring were so satisfactory that the winter provision for sheep on the run now includes an ample supply of straw for chaffing. Mr Coleman, the author of the " Prize Essay on the Management of Sheep Stock," published in the Itoyal Agricultural Society's Journal for 1.865, strongly advocated the use of straw chaff for sheep food. He wrote : " The object of this essay is to point out the best means of increasing sheep stock. Here, then, is one way: We must make one acre of turnips keep twice as many sheep as hitherto In a far more healthy condition. Last winter I saw many Hocks living on damp chaff with a little artificial food, and doing as well as could be wished, with every prospect of a healthy produce and an abundant supply of milk. I have long desired to see an economical plan of pulping roots devised, as the animal might then be induced to eat a large quantity of straw chaff rendered palatable and nutritious by a small addition of artificial food. . . . Hitherto farmers have supposed that a bellyful of turnips was necessary for a breeding animal, and have based their calculations on the stock of roots that were thus to be wasted. The past winter has taught us to give these roots in a healthier form, eking out the supply by a nice admixture of other palatable food. It is calculated by Morton and other authorities that a breeding ewe will consume one-fourth of its live weight of turnips, or 201b to 301b a day, of fjwhich nine-tenths is water. If we can reduce the roots one-half and substitute an equivalent in the form of straw and condimental food, we shall have achieved a great point. From personal experience, lam fully convinced that good straw may be economically substituted for hay in the winter keeping of sheep even without any artificial food, though the cost of the latter is so slight that it can be economically supplied." Mr Coleman gives a calculation to show that by giving sheep partly straw fodder and partly roots while feeding on the land in the proportion of l£lb of the former per head per day, the value of the manure left on the land would be increased by more than onehalf.

Since the system of feeding partly on straw was thus advocated many years ago by Mr Coleman and others the practice has become nearly universal throughout the best farmed districts in England and Scotland. The favourite plan is to pulp the roots and mix with the chaffed straw, but at certain seasons green stuff, such as rye, barley, tares, &c, take the place of roots. In the United Kingdom the practicability of keeping sheep on a winter diet, the bulk of which is straw chaff with a small portion of highly nutritious food, such as oil cake, meal, grain, or treacle mixed with it, has long ago been proved. Farmers here are not likely to invest in condimontal foods for the purpose of stock feeding, but rarely a winter passes without cheap grain being obtainable in country districts, and a little of this crushed, or bran instead, would go a long way. The chaffing of straw and the pulping of turnips will doubtless bo objected to on the score of expense, but when the increased number of animals that can be fed is fairly taken into account, ib will be seen that the objection is untenable.