Mar. ii, 1921 



Sunflower Silage Digestion Experiment 



887 



tion experiments with pigs, in which they found individual differences 

 in pigs of the same age and species in the amount of feed digested which 

 prevailed throughout 40 digestion periods. 



It is readily seen that to secure an average digestion coefficient with 

 any class of animals, a considerable number should be employed, which 

 would mitigate the factor of errors introduced by individuality of the 

 animals. If, however, a considerable number of animals are employed, 

 the work becomes very voluminous and necessitates a large number of 

 men to carry the experiment to completion. While these individual 

 differences are not very great, it is thought that a sufficiently close 

 digestive coefficient value can be obtained by using a smaller number 

 of animals. In this work it is believed that the average coefficient 

 obtained for the cows and sheep closely approximate the true digestive 

 coefficient. A comparison of the analysis of the sunflower silage fed at 

 this station and that fed at Montana, together with the digestible nutri- 

 ents contained in each silage, follows. 



Table VI. — Comparison of sunflower silage fed at Idaho and Montana Agricultural 



Experiment Stations 



It is seen that a slight difference exists between the digestive nutrients 

 found by Montana and those obtained by us, but the difference is small. 

 No data are available as to the kind of animals used by Montana, hence 

 no comments can be made. The nutritive ratio found by Montana and 

 by Idaho is quite similar. Some of the difference is no doubt due to the 

 different stages of maturity of the sunflowers. Montana silage was made 

 from sunflowers cut when 5 per cent were in bloom, while Idaho silage 

 represents a crop cut when 50 per cent were in bloom. 



Additional studies are needed to determine the best time to cut sun- 

 flowers in order to secure the maximum food value. 



When the digestion coefficients of sunflower silage obtained from cattle 

 and sheep are compared with the coefficients of immature corn given in 

 the early part of this paper, it is seen that for protein the cows utilizep 

 practically the same amount from sunflower silage that they utilized 

 from immature corn. With sheep, there is slightly more digestible protein 



