426 FEEDS AND FEEDING 



appreciating this fact, early investigators usually advised supplementing 

 skim milk with nitrogenous concentrates, such as linseed meal and bran. 



While various fats and oils may be used to supplement skim milk, the 

 cereal grains, rich in carbohydrates, are cheaper and more satisfactory 

 supplements than the oils available for calf feeding. Unless oil is fed as 

 an emulsion with the milk it is apt to produce indigestion and scours, for 

 young animals in general have but limited ability to digest fat. (117) 

 At the Massachusetts Station 6 Lindsey found cod-liver oil added to skim 

 milk unsatisfactory, the calves sometimes refusing the combination. A 

 cheap grade of oleomargarine was heated to 110 F. and mixed with skim 

 milk by churning. It was found that 1 ounce of oil per quart of skim 

 milk was all that the calf could take without indigestion being produced. 

 Cottonseed oil and corn oil to the amount of one-half ounce per quart 

 of milk were fed without bad effect. 



682. Farm grains as skim-milk supplements. That the farm-grown 

 grains should ordinarily be used as the chief supplement to skim ,milk for 

 calf feeding is shown in trials by Curtiss at the Iowa Station. 7 Different 

 lots of calves were fed skim milk and hay, and in addition corn alone, 

 linseed meal alone, ground oats with the hulls sifted out, or corn meal 

 with a little flax seed. The calves fed corn or oats made more rapid and 

 considerably cheaper gains than those fed the protein-rich linseed meal. 

 Curtiss concluded from these trials : ' ' In the corn-belt states, with their 

 surplus of corn and oats, there is no necessity for the purchase of a high- 

 priced nitrogenous product to be used in supplementing the skim-milk 

 ration." 



Nearly all the cereal grains are well suited for calf feeding. In ad- 

 dition to corn and oats, barley is excellent, 8 as are also the grain sor- 

 ghums. The latter are especially well suited to feed with skim milk, 

 because they are costive in effect, and tend to overcome any tendency 

 toward scouring. 9 Duggar 10 reports that rice meal is decidedly inferior 

 to corn as a supplement to skim milk. Because it was impossible to get 

 the calves to eat sufficient rice meal, one third wheat bran was added. 



Instead of feeding merely corn, oats, or other grain as the concentrates 

 to calves, many dai^men prefer to mix with the grain a small proportion 

 of such well-liked feeds as wheat bran and linseed meal to make the 

 ration more palatable. When only a small amount of skim milk is avail- 

 able for the calves, sufficient protein-rich feeds should be included in the 

 concentrate mixture to make a well balanced ration. 



In teaching calves to eat, ground grain is usually fed, but later whole 

 corn or oats gives as good or even better results than the ground grain. 11 

 When the calves are 6 to 8 months old, they chew their feed less thoroly, 



Mass. Rpts. 1893, 1894. 

 7 Iowa Bui. 35. 



"Fain and Jarnagin, Va. Bui. 172. 



9 Cottrell, Otis, and Haney, Kan. Bui. 93. 10 Ala. Bui. 128. 



"Otis, Kan. Bui. 126; Fain and Jarnagin, Va. Bui. 172; Kildee, Iowa Cir. 16; 

 McCandish, Iowa Res. Bui. 51. 



