282 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ceive a sufQciently large amount of actual feeding constituents unless some 

 more concentrated foods are used. 



The grain ration which is fed to the cow should be balanced up as 

 well as the roughage. Some corn meal may be used, but in small quanti- 

 ties. A large portion of the ration should be made up of foodstuffs that 

 are rich in protein, such as gluten feed, cottonseed meal, ground oats, 

 middlings, union grains, distillers' grains, malt sprouts, dried brewers' 

 grains, germ meal, shorts, or oil meal. These concentrated foods should 

 be supplied in varying quantities according to the capacity and milk-pro- 

 ducing ability of the individual cow under consideration. In many 

 vicinities, however, alfalfa hay cannot be raised, and clover hay which 

 has been properly made may be substituted by feeding a lesser amount of 

 silage and a greater amount of hay. In this section of the country a 

 great deal of timothy hay is used and we oftentimes find it the practice 

 among dairymen to use it in their feeding operations. It should be re- 

 membered, however, that timothy hay has a very low feeding value for 

 dairy cows and experiments that have been performed lead us to believe 

 that shredded corn fodder is almost as valuable in producing milk as is 

 timothy hay. On the other hand, timothy hay as a rule commands a 

 high price upon the market and for this reason, where it is possible, it 

 should be sold and the money received expended for alfalfa or clover hay 

 that is rich in protein and can be fed to a great deal better advantage. 

 The main value of either timothy or shredded corn fodder when fed in 

 conjunction with corn silage is to supply dry matter. For the cow that 

 received all the corn silage and clover or alfalfa hay that she can con- 

 sume needs only a small amount of expensive grain daily, and no doubt 

 this amount would be covered with eight pounds even if she were flush 

 in her milk producing period. 



Care should be exercised in the feeding of silage to prohibit con- 

 tamination of milk. Unless it is used judiciously and in such amounts 

 that all which is fed will be consumed, thus insuring that none of the 

 feed will lie around the barn to mould, decay or impart odors, there will 

 be many disadvantages in its use. Even at the present time milk con- 

 densories are prohibiting the use of corn silage in the territory from which 

 they draw their milk supply. This, however, is really not the fault of 

 the silage and it should be borne in mind that it is not the silage that 

 the cow eats that taints the milk, but the silage which is allowed to 

 remain in the barn to contaminate the air, and thus the milk after it 

 has been drawn from the cow, which does the harm. Extreme care should 

 be taken to keep all odors of the silage out of the barn and milk room 

 at milking periods. The cow should be fed silage only after milking 

 times and then care should be taken that no more silage be given the cow 

 than the amount which she will readily clean up, and in case any silage 

 remains in the feed box uneaten the feeder should make it a point to 

 remove this uneaten food before the next milking period. As soon as 

 the milk is drawn from the cow it begins to cool rapidly and during the 

 process of cooling it takes up odors more quickly than at any other time, 

 so that if the air is permeated with the odor of silage it is readily seen 

 that the milk will at once become contaminated and is really unfit for 

 human consumption. 



