Feed rate

“ As our knowledge increases, we give greater attention to the economical and efficient use of all feeds for live-stock. We cannot afford to feed even the corn stalks carelessly, either for the immediate concern of the pocket-book or for the good of the animal. The results of many experiments in feeding lead to the conclusion that a suitable daily ration for a cow giving milk and weighing 1,000 pounds should contain 24 pounds of dry matter, of which 2.5 pounds is digestible protein ”

“ During the last few years those who have fed grain and alfalfa as we used to feed, have found it difficult to meet expenses. We used to be taught that, since a cow required so much to maintain her body whether she produced milk or not and only the amount she consumed above that amount could be available for milk production, it was well to feed as much grain as possible without injuring the cow or reducing her flow. ”

“ Corn, oats, wheat feeds and oil meal will generally form the main part of our ration. The average farmer is hardly warranted in looking farther for [Pg 42] grains to feed. Oil meal helps as a conditioner and is fed in small amounts only. Cottonseed meal may be of value but has never proven so in the writer’s personal experience.
Grain should be ground so that all of the nutriments may be absorbed. The amount of grain to be fed varies with the amount of milk that the cow is producing. One pound of grain to every five pounds of milk is a fairly good rule to follow. ”

“ Once a week we give them a meal of stale bread which has been steeped in skim-milk and squeezed almost dry again, for we have lots of skim-milk, and the bread we get from a baker in the town for twenty-five cents a barrel. Freight costs another twenty-five cents, but even at fifty cents a barrel we find it an economical feed when there are a lot of squabs to be fattened for the market.
The parent birds take all the trouble and responsibility of feeding and raising the young right up to the time they are ready for market. ”

“ To maintain the cow in the right condition, we consider both the kind and the amount of feed. Many times we decrease the grain ration to keep a cow from getting fat and going dry too soon. Too much grain fed is a great waste. The right amount to be fed can not be figured so much by the size of the cow as by what she does with it. The milk pail contains the answer to most feeding problems. Increase the feed slightly and if no more milk is produced, begin to decrease and watch what happens. ”

“ It is, however, often the case that bullocks receive 100 lbs., or upwards, of roots per day, with a large quantity of cake or meal, often 10 or 12 lbs. per day; they will not then look at straw, and are obliged to be fed with hay. The cost price of these quantities and kinds of food stands so high that the animals do not yield a profit; for although they may make meat a little faster, yet the proportionate increase is nothing compared to the increased cost of the feeding materials used. ”

“ Flesh eating will have to be abandoned for economic reasons. Even the milk supply will necessarily be limited, for we are compelled to feed the cow 5 pounds of digestible foodstuffs to obtain 1 pound of water-free food in the form of milk. ”

“ The complete fattening of cattle is a losing business with some feeders, and a profitable one with others. Stall-feeding is a branch of rural economy which, perhaps more than any other, requires the combination of "science with practice;" yet how few feeders are there who have the slightest knowledge of the composition of food substances, or who are agreed as to the feeding value, absolute or relative, of even such well-known materials as oil-cake, straw, or oats! ”

“ A given acreage of wheat will feed at least ten times as many men as the same acreage employed in growing ‘mutton.’ It is usually calculated that the consumption of wheat by an adult is about one quarter per annum, and we know that good land produces four quarters. But let us assume that a man living on grain would require two quarters a year; still one acre would support two men. But, a man living on [flesh] meat would need 3lbs. a day, and it is considered a liberal calculation if an acre spent in grazing sheep and cattle will yield in ‘beef’ and ‘mutton’ more than 50lb. ”

“ I do not know just to what extent a cow requires a balanced ration. Since some feeds have values over others that the chemical analysis does not show, I think the balanced ration figures and tables have been overworked. They are not entirely valueless, however. Some [Pg 29] will be placed in this book. Everyone knows that a cow should not be fed one kind of feed only. We should give as great a variety of feeds as possible and the cow’s likes and dislikes, together with the results in the milk pail, give about all the information concerning a balanced feed that the writer has ever used. ”

“ A cow to remain stationary and give no milk, eats two per cent. of her weight daily; and if in milk, she will consume three per cent. If these statements are correct, which it is certain they are in principle, though they may not be entirely in degree, it will require the same food to keep three yoke of cattle in idleness, as two at work; and the food of every two that are idle, will nearly support one under the most rapid condition of fatting. Two cows may be kept in milk, with the same feed that will keep three without. ”

“ These experiments prove that we must keep somewhere near a balanced ration but do not prove anything regarding a definite value of skim as a feed.
What your skim milk is worth on the farm depends altogether on how much it is needed to balance the diet in hog feeding operations. It is of much more value for little pigs than for larger hogs that are more capable of digesting grasses. ”

“ When a weekly income is decreased for any cause, the one item of food which seldom varies—or at any rate is the last to vary—is bread. Meat is affected at once. Meat may sink from 4s. a week to 6d. owing to a fluctuation in income. But the amount of bread bought when the full allowance was paid is, if possible, still bought when meat may have almost decreased to nothing. The amount of bread eaten in an ordinary middle-class, well-to-do, but economically managed household of thirteen persons is 18 quarterns, or 36 loaves, a week—something not far short of 3 loaves a head a week. ”

“ With respect to the exact routine to be pursued, no rule could be prescribed which would apply to all cases; and each individual must be governed much by circumstances, both in respect to the particular kinds of feed at different seasons of the year, and the system of feeding. ”

“ We must take into consideration the price of grain, the price of rough feed, and the price of milk products, before we can determine the proportion of grain and other feed that should be given to the dairy cow.
We can make milk out of rough feed without any grain under the proper conditions. When grain is too much out of proportion in price, we can safely do without it, if our rough feed happens to be good pasture or good alfalfa hay and silage. If our roughage is too poor, it rarely pays to compel good dairy cows to live on it alone, for their future usefulness will be impaired by starvation. ”

“ If the usual time for the feed be allowed to pass, the animals are almost certain to become very uneasy—to worry; and every feeder knows, or ought to know, that a fretting beast will neither fatten nor yield milk satisfactorily. ”

“ But physiological considerations point to the conclusion that the expenditure, independently of loss or gain, will be the greater the more liberal the ration, and hence it is probable that the real excess, if any, over that required for sustenance and milk-production would be less than that indicated in the table, which is calculated on the assumption of a fixed requirement for sustenance for a given live-weight of the animal. ”

“ It is to be regretted that the market price of feeding stuffs is not, in consequence of our defective knowledge, strictly determined by their nutritive value, for if such were the case, the feeder would merely have to adapt each to the nature and condition of his stock. Even amongst practical men there prevails, unfortunately, great diversity of opinion as to the relative nutritive value of the greater number of food substances ”

“ At this period of our national history, when food is scarce, and the supply of meat insufficient to meet the demand which our national habits of feeding perpetuate, it is an object of the first importance to consider whether other aliments can be obtained at a cheaper rate, and at the same time equal in quality to those of the existing dietary. ”

“ Now the proper way to solve a problem is not to evade it, but to face it and conquer it, and this is eminently true of the meat problem. Granted that the proportion of family income devoted to food cannot be increased, it is a fact that, by an intelligent study of the food value of the different kinds of meat, and of economic ways of preparing them, the expense of living may be maintained at the former rate, if not, indeed, materially lessened, with a great increase in both the nutritive value and the palatability of the family meals. ”

“ The quantity of food necessary to supply the wants of individual animals is governed by its weight. A cow in full profit consumes daily 3 per cent. of her live weight. During April, a cow in full milk should have, in addition to boiled or steamed roots and hay or straw chaff, 2 lb. bean or pea meal, 2 lb. wheat meal, 2 lb. ground oats, and 2 lb. bran. If these cannot be grown on the farm or purchased at moderate cost, 2 lb. linseed, barley, or Indian corn meal may be substituted for the wheat meal. If the aim is quality, it is essential that bean, pea, or oat meals be used. ”

“ To ascertain the exact amount needed for a feed of this kind, as well as of the other green crops, requires some judgment on the part of the feeder; but a very safe rule is to feed just such an amount as the cow will eat clean, and no more. We cannot specify exactly what would be a proper amount in every case, neither can we spend time to weigh each ration, but, by observing carefully, we are enabled to determine very closely. I find that my cow will eat, besides her other feed, a good armful of green fodder three times a day. ”

“ The measure, or choenix, of wheat was the usual daily allowance of food for a man. So according to the rate given, it would require a day's labor to supply food sufficient for one man, which shows an enormous price placed upon these necessaries of life. In ordinary times the penny would procure about twenty measures of wheat instead of one, and fifty or sixty measures of barley instead of three. Surely this represents famine prices. ”

“ For the sake of illustration, an average yield of milk of 10 quarts, equal 21/2 gallons, or between 25 and 26 ℔ per head per day, may be assumed, and the amount of constituents in the weekly yield at this rate may be compared with that in the weekly increase of the fattening ox at the higher rate assumed in the table, namely, 15 ℔ per 1000 ℔ live-weight, or 1.5% per week. ”

“ Fruits should be used once daily. The canned fruits will cost an average of $14.00 a meal for 1000 persons, while the evaporated fruit will cost an average of $4.00 for same number, a saving of $10.00 per day, or $3,650.00 a year. Now you will admit that fish is a desirable article of diet for at least 32 weeks a year. Suppose fish be placed on your bill of fare twice a week for 32 weeks, or in all for 64 meals. Beef, pork or mutton will all cost about the same, or for 1000 persons $45.00. ”

“ No troublesome symptoms usually result from this full feeding, and the patient may be made to eat more largely by being fed by her attendant. People who will eat very little if they feed themselves, often take a large amount when fed by another; and, as I have said before, nothing is more tiresome than for a patient flat on her back to cut up her food and to use the fork or spoon. By the plan of feeding we thus gain doubly. ”

“ Economy of Production.—Animal foods can never compete in cheapness of the nutrients with cereals and vegetables, as it takes six to eight pounds or more of a cereal, together with forage crops, to make a pound of meat. Hence the returns in food value are very much larger from the direct use of the cereals as human food, than from the feeding of cereals to cattle and the use of the meat. As the population of a country increases, and foods necessarily become more expensive, cereals are destined to replace animal foods to a great extent, solely as a matter of economy. ”

“ To facilitate inspection, it is advisable to portion off the stock of provisions for each week in separate sacks, and never to open a fresh sack till the previous one has been emptied. The contents of the sacks for the latter weeks should be increased a fifth-part at least above the normal weight; because hunger with its accompanying loss of strength generally grows in a distressing manner. The provisions should consist of boiled beef, hard bread, extract of meat, chocolate, grits, pea-sausages, sugar, rice, condensed milk, and coffee. ”

“ The food value, estimated as dried meat, would be about sixteen hundred calories per pound, or the same as an equal quantity of wheat meal. That is, an acre of land would produce in the form of beef, the food equivalent of seventy-five pounds of wheat in two years, whereas, a single acre of grain would produce on an average, even when poorly cultivated, in two crops not less than thirty-two bushels of more than 1900 pounds of wheat, or more than twenty-five times as much food as the same land would produce in the same length of time in the form of beef. ”