418 PopPtl Seed Cake as a Cattle Food 



Srienlific Feeding of Animals remarks that poppy seed cake is bad for 

 milch or young cattle or pregnant animals, but that it is suitable for 

 fattening stock. We have been unable to find any actual experimental 

 evidence in support of these statements. On the other hand, the cake 

 seems to be well esteemed for milch animals in the Unao District of the 

 United Provinces. The literature goes to show that the seeds are quite 

 free from alkaloids^. Moreover, Thorpe^ states that by far the greatest 

 part of poppy seed oil is used for edible purposes. This would point to 

 the absence of any deleterious substance in the seed. 



Attention may here be drawn to another feeding stuff derived from 

 a drug plant (viz. hemp seed cake). During the course of investigations on 

 the effect of feeding on the composition of milk and butter undertaken 

 by Cranfield' and by Cranfield and Taylor, it was shown that the com- 

 position and quality of milk and butter produced by hemp seed cake 

 was practically equal to that obtained by feeding linseed cake. 



Dairy cattle when well fed will yield a greater amount of milk than 

 when maintained on a lower plane of nutrition. But the quality of the 

 milk is likewise affected to a certain extent by the feeding. For example, 

 when a cow is changed suddenly from a grain ration to grass* a very 

 marked taste is developed in the milk. Cranfield^ showed that the effect 

 of removal of cows from a poor pasture to a well-balanced ration results 

 in an increase of the milk, attended with a large fall in the percentage 

 of fat and certain other changes in the composition of fat. Again 

 Hansen' found that palm oil cake in the ration increases the fat content 

 of the milk but does not affect the yield of milk. It is also a matter of 

 experience that linseed cake in the food produces soft butter and cotton 

 cake and cereal grains produce a hard butter. 



1 Muller, "Alkaloids vou Papaver sumniffrum." Archiv dcr Pharmacic, 1914, 252 

 (4), p. 292. 



- Did. of Applied Chcni. vol. 4, art. "Opium Seed Oil," p. 334. 



' Cranfield, "Effect of feeding with cocoanut cake and linseed cake on the eonijjosition 

 of butter fat." Analyst, 36 (1911), p. 445 



Cranfield and Taylor, "Effect of feeding on composition of milk and butter; linseed 

 cake and hempseed cake." Ihid. 40 (1915), p. 433; "Ditto. Dried yeast and decorticated 

 cotton meal." Ibid. 41 (1916), p. 240. Cranfield, ditto, "decorticated groundnut cake 

 and decorticated cotton cake." Ibid. p. 33G. 



* Eckles, Dairy cattle and milk proditctiony p. 255. 



^ Hansen, "The effect of palm oil cakes upon milk production in cows." Haiidw. 

 Juhrb. 47 (1914), p. 1, abs. in E.rpt. Sla. Ere. 33 (1913). p. (;74. 



