CALCULATION OF RATIONS 77 



There are several other considerations that should receive atten- 

 tion in formulating rations for farm animals, besides supplying 

 nutrients in the right amounts and proportions and getting an effec- 

 tive ration at as low a cost as possible. Among these are : 



First, the feeds must be palatable to the animals fed and must 

 not have any deleterious influence on their digestion or general health 

 or on the products which they furnish. A well-balanced ration for 

 milch cows can be made up of oat straw and oil meal, but it would 

 not be likely to produce satisfactory results, because of the large 

 amount of roughage the cows would have to consume and the unpala- 

 tability of the ration. 



Second, the rations must contain a fair proportion of roughage 

 and concentrates ; they must not be too bulky and still must contain 

 a sufficient amount of roughage to keep up the rumination of the 

 animals, in the case of cows and sheep, and to secure a healthy 

 condition of the animals generally. In the case of dairy cows, about 

 two pounds of hay are generally fed per hundredweight, if this is the 

 sole roughage. If silage is available, one pound of hay and three 

 pounds of silage may be fed per hundredweight, and one pound of 

 concentrates for every three to five pounds of milk produced, accord- 

 ing to the character of the roughage and the quality of the milk pro- 

 duced; if a good quality of roughage is available, less grain may be 

 fed, and vice versa. Cows producing milk of low fat content should 

 receive less grain per pound of milk than high testing cows (see 

 p. 240). A good rule for feeding grain to cows on mixed hay, corn 

 stover, corn silage, and similar low-protein roughage is to allow as 

 many pounds of grain a day as the cow gives pounds of butter fat 

 in a week. Cows receiving a good grade of alfalfa or other rich 

 coarse feeds will not need more than one-half of this amount of 

 grain feed. 



Third, the ration should conform to the system of farming fol- 

 lowed, and this should be arranged with a view to growing on the 

 farm, if possible, all the roughage and most of the concentrates which 

 the stock are to receive, so that the farmer may be largely indepen- 

 dent of the feed market with its fluctuating prices. 



Fourth, the rations are preferably composed of feeds of different 

 origin, so that, especially, the protein substances are supplied from 

 different sources. The recent experiments with cows fed rations 

 balanced from restricted sources (corn, wheat, or oat products only) 

 at the Wisconsin Experiment Station 2 illustrate in a striking way 

 the necessity of furnishing a variety in the make-up of rations for 



2 Research Bulletin 17. 



