3S0 



ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Off. Doc. 



roin represents just net food value, then the 47.2 pounds of hay is 

 changed partly into waste heat and the real food value for main- 

 tenance is less than this amount. And therefore it will not do to use 

 iagures derived in this way for comparing the feeddng value of con- 

 centrated grain and coarse fodder. All we can say is that the pound 

 digestible from grain is worth more for food than a pound digestible 

 from coarse fodder. How much more we cannot say, but some tests 

 by actual feeding, made on this point gave a value of about one and 

 one-sixth times as great for the grain as for the hay. 



Treated in this same way the following values are gotten for the 

 varous feeding stuffs: 



Maintenance Value ;n 100 Pounds of Each. 





GRAINS: 



Corn, -ient 



Gluten meal 



Wheat bran, 



Oats, 



Cottonseed meal, 



COARSE FODDERS: 



Timothy hay 



Corn stover 



Oat straw , 



Corn silage 



75.5 

 88.2 

 52.3 

 60.0 

 79.1 



47.2 

 31.2 

 36.4 

 12.2 



Relative Value of Different Fodders. 



The second phase of the subject is the question of the relative value 

 of different fodders, when fed to animals that are expected to make 

 some return for the food they consume. This i» the practical phase 

 of the problem, but is much more difficult to answer, because the 

 animal waste so much of its food or uses it in ways that can return 

 no profit to the owner. These wastes are of several kinds, as 

 follows: 



1. Loss by fermentation and the giving off of marsh gas. This has 

 already been mentioned and is always a complete loss, no matter for 

 what purpose the animal is kept. In ruminants this loss is about 

 ten per cent, of the original value; in the horse a little less and in 

 the hog and in human beings scarcely any at all. 



2. Loss by fermentation and the production of carbonic acid gas — 

 carbon dioxide. This produces just as much heat as though the 

 material was made into flesh and regularly burned after being worn 

 out, but none of the material so fermented can possibly be of any use 



