FEEDING DAIRY COWS.

Waipa Post, Volume XII, Issue 817, 7 February 1919, Page 3

FEEDING DAIRY COWS.

'ENGLISH EXPERIMENTS. Over-feeding of dairy cows is often condemned as wasteful, and so it is from the view of milk production, if not from any other point; but, in a general purpose cow, which is the one which appeals to all farmers, carcase must not be lost sight of (says a writer in the "Farmer and Stockbreeder"). Much money may be lost, no doubt, by continual heavy feeding when milk supply does not warrant it, but in the case of a cow which is to be got rid of. the loss, if any, is not so apparent even if it assists in the drying process, as most assuredly will happen to some cows. Farmers will allow that they get their money back from the butcher, or even from a dealer in milk stock, as there is still much virtue attached to a beast that fills the eye. However, it has been found by experiment that so far as increased weight goes, the carcase test is a questionable set-off against high feeding. The comprehensive and very thorough Offerton Hall experiments in high and medium feeding rations are worth .studying in this connection, and further experiment has shown, moreover, that feeding in addition to grazing does not even necessarily produce an increase at all. In four different experiments made at Offerton with high rations, there was a decided gain in weight over the cows fed on a moderate ration, which in two of the experiments gave various results, but this difference, as a rule, only represented some 301 b to 401 b., which is not an adequate set-off to the cost of the extra 41b. of concentrated food, especially as the milk yield was little affected by the heavy ration. This latter followed closely the character of the cows, irrespective of feeding, and so the increased li» r e weight would presumably be of small use to draw upon as a milking reserve to "work against," as some farmers believe to be the case. Some connection between the live-weight gain or loss and milking capacity is perhaps traceable, but it is not at all prominent, as the best performances in milk or butter were found with the high and low live weights and with a loss of weight, and it was noticed that, even when an increased flow of milk followed an improvement in live weight, as the cows got into better condition, this increase was most striking in the case of the lighter ration. A point of interest to the feeder of fat cattle lies in the fact that the live weight gains were most easily made in the summer, thus showing that the moderate'amount of exercise which cows get at

grass is not detrimental to flesh making. The two lots of cows approximated each other in increase made more closely than in the winter, although there was more difference in the relative rations fed. and the increase made was something like double the winter performance, though the rations were materially lighter in the summer. This ran up to practically fewt. for the heavier-fed cows, but very different results were recorded for all the other tests, which were on winter food.