STOCK FEEDING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20110, 31 March 1928, Page 24 (Supplement)

STOCK FEEDING

WHAT TO AIM AT PROBLEM OF PROFITABLE RATIONS The most important thing in stock feeding, whether the product be meat or milk, is quick production, for which, above all else, are required a competent animal and a competent ration. A competent animal and incompetent ration, or an incompetent animal and a competent ration will not do. Both animal and ration must be competent. To feed an animal capable of making three pounds of beef a day with a ration on which ho can make but one is about as futile as to feed a bullock capable of making no more than one pound on a highly efficient ration, or indeed, on any ration at all.

The argument for quick production in stock feeding is the same as for quick production in any other product. It turns upon what the manufacturer calls running costs —the costs of keeping buildings in order, machinery running and office going. If the difference between the cost of raw materials and labour, on the one hand, and the value of the produce on the ther, be not enough to cover his running costs, ho may as well close down.

At present, setting all the other costs than food against the value of the manure, the running costs of a ten hun-dred-weight bullock or cow are about 5d or 6d—say, 6d a day (writes Professor .Janies Wilson in The Live Stock Journal). With an efficient or competent ration, the cost of the additional food required to put on beef is about 3d a pound, to produce milk about 2Jd a gallon. Thus, if a pound of live beef and a gallon of milk be each worth 6d on the farm, the difference between the costs of the raw materials and the value of the product —3d a lb. of beef and 2A per gallon of milk—is such that the bullock makes no profit till he puts on about 21bs of beef, the cow till she yields about 171bs. of milk. What are capable stock? They are cows that can yield 5 or 6 gallons a day at the flush, bullocks that can put on 2J to 31bs a day, till they are two years old; sheep that can put on half a pound a day when they weigh a hundred weigh*, and pigs that can put on nearly 21bs a day when they weigh a hundredweight and a quarter. Animals and breeds of lower capacity should be avoided. Capable Rations And what are capable rations? They are rations which have some regard for the size of the anmal’s stomach, for its digestive peculiarities, and for the ease with which the bulkier ingredients can be manipulated. A ton hundred-weight cow might consume 30 lbs. of oat straw a day. The straw contains, if it could be got easily, enough digestible nutriment to keep the cow alive and produce, perhaps, a gallon of milk. But would she produce any milk at all? Would she remain long alive? The disintegration and manipulation of such a bulk of straw runs away with so much of the digestible energy that too little is left over for the continued maintenance of life, let alone milk production. The same sized cow might consume 30 lbs of hay, which contains enough digestible nutriment to keep her alive and produce over 2 gallons of milk. But would she produce this quantity? Again disintegration and manipulation use up too much of the digestible energy. Reduce the straw and therefore, to bulks which will not use too much stomach room and waste digested energy, and fill up with plenty of cone,entrates which, for the work they do, are no more, if not less, expensive, and a small quantity of roots. For a cow or bullock, the approximate optimum quantities are £- of a pound of straw and five or six of roots, or a pound to a pound and a quarter of hay and four of five of roots to the live hundredweight. The rest should be concentrates. Sheep should have about a third of a pound of hay, but may have up to ten or twelve pounds of roots to the live hundred pounds. The rest should be concentrates.

Pigs should have nothing but concentrates, and at that, non-fibrous concentrates. Such foods as oats and bran, if fed at all, should bo fed in small quantity. Till they arc larger, say, about, 1501bs live weight, no food is more effective for pigs than skimmed milk in quantity, not much more than 51bs to the live lOOlbs. Lime and Chlorine Nothing has been said about protein, because if sufficient concentrates arc fed to ensure maximum production, protein can scarcely be lacking. A little may be said, however, about two other things, lime and chlorine. All pastures are perilously near being short of chlorine for cattle; therefore, on pasture, cattle should have a salt lick. For young growing cattle for sheep pastures are short of lime unless they contain a considerable proportion of clover. Sheep demand lime very strongly, and their concentrates should always con-

sist of beans, peas, linseed cake, decorticated cotton cake or other lime-con-taining foods, rather than of cereal grains. Concentrates generally are shorter of lime and chlorine than are long fodders and roots. Thus, highyielding cows and pigs, which are fed on concentrates entirely, should have lime and chlorine added to their ration —about 21 ounces of powdered chalk or steamed bone flour and 1 ounce of ordinary salt to every stone of the cow’s concentrates; 4 or 5 ounces of powdered lime and 1 ounce of salt to every stone of the milking cow’s concentrates. All very young animals have plenty of lime and chlorine in their mother’s milk, which should bo given to them, whole or skimmed, till they are beyond the period of rapid bone and flesh production.