FEEDING MANGOLDS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1593, 8 January 1925, Page 7

FEEDING MANGOLDS.

APT TO BE OVERDONE.

At the present time, both among practical farmers and others connected with the dairy industry, there is considerable discussion as to the value of roots in the ration of a dairy cow, writes Mr R. Boutflour, Agricultural Officer for Wiltshire. There are cases of well-known agricultural scientists and successful dairy farmers who attach great importance to the feeding of roots, but, on the other hand, the writer now knows scores of farmers who put down the value of roots at very little, but who formerly were great believers in them. The question is: Who is right? Taking Wiltshire as a whole, roots form a considerable item in the ration of the dairy cow, and to get those roots farmers go to a great deal of expense in manures and labour. The chief root grown is the mangold, and, speaking generally, quite good crops of them are grown in the. county, with the result that a liberal ration of mangolds is very largely fed, very probably in the neighbourhood of 56 pounds per day. In connection with this point, very few farmers realise how many mangolds they feed. The mangold is undoubtedly of a very laxative nature and will very soon cause the animal to scour. Let us try and picture what is happening in the cow's digestive apparatus in a case of scour. In normal circumstances, as the food passes slowly along, the digestible nutrients of the food are absorbed through the walls of the intestines. In a case of scour, however, the food passes so quickly through that the digestible nutrients are not absorbed and the cow is not getting its correct amount of nutriment. If large quantities of mangolds are fed, then the cows will soon become very loose, and, as a result, they will not turn out the maximum amount of milk. On this account alone the writer has in many cases recommended a reduction, and in some cases a total withdrawal, of mangolds from the rations of milking cows, with the result that, in all cases there has been an Increase in the yield of milk. This is a very startling discovery, because, for generations, the farmers of this country have been brought up to look upon the mangold as the salvation of the dairy farmer for winter feeding.

To put it very briefly, and in plain simple English, the result of feeding mangolds in this country during winter has been to reduce the yield of milk. This has been especially noticeable on those farms where hay only and no straw is fed in the maintenance ration; in the case of the largely arable farm, where straw has to be fed, a reduction in the quantity of mangolds has given a bigger yield of milk. The writer, with his present data, is not in a position to recommend that mangolds be omitted where large quantities of straw are being consumed, but he certainly would not recommend the feeding of more than 40 to 50 pounds per day in any case. The fact that increased yields of milk have been obtained by a cutting out of the mangolds (and not replacing them by other feeding stuffs) has been demonstrated on many farms, comprising some hundreds of cows, and as this is so absolutely opposed to commonly-held opinions, one is compelled to seek for the reason for this fact. Some explanation can be obtained on account of looseness, but a further explanation might be on the ground of incomplete insalivation of the food. Before food can be of any use to the animal it must be digested and absorbed through the wall of the stomach. In the matter of starcny foods of a fibrous nature this is largely accomplished by the thorough grinding and mixing with the saliva in the mouth. During the process of mastication the food takes up a large amount of water due to its being mix-, ed up with mangolds both before eating and also after in the first compartment of the stomach, then it is obvious that there is not going to be the same flow of saliva into the mouth and the consequent thorough absorption of saliva by the foods whilst it is being chewed prior to passing further along the digestive apparatus. These explanations on the score of looseness and incomplete insalivation may be, to a certain extent, hypothetical, but the fact remains that an increased yield of milk has been obtained by the decrease or elimination, of the quantity of mangolds, so much so that many farmers who were formerly ardent believers in mangolds as a milk producer will next year be growing none at all or very little. On the herds where this has been done there are cows which are about the 1000 gallon mark in the first six months of this recording year, and in the case of one farmer there will be, in consequence, a surplus of thirty tons of mangolds. The writer anticipates a considerable amount of disagreement on this question of the feeding value of mangolds, but, with the evidence already in his possession, he has no doubt in his own mind that, on farms where hay forms the major portion of the fodder, mangolds are very much over-rated and not an economic proposition. Anyone on a hay farm, who has cows efficiently managed and fed according to yield and is at all sceptical, should try a little experiment on his own either by halving the quantity of mangolds or withdrawing them altogether.