CHAPTER XI 



USING ENERGY VALUES FOR COMPUTING 

 RATIONS 



Feeding Stuffs Possess Energy. When food is 

 consumed and utilized in the animal system vital 

 and muscular energy is produced. Any feeding 

 stuff, therefore, is fuel for the animal that consumes 

 it. The chemical energy contained in that food 

 will be set free just as the energy stored in coal or 

 wood or oil or alcohol is set free when burned in an 

 engine. In either case heat is developed and work 

 results. 



The value of any material as a fuel substance will 

 naturally depend on how much chemical energy that 

 material contains. Both the quantity and the qual- 

 ity must be determined in order to get a fair meas- 

 ure of its energy value. Armsby 1 has worked out a 

 plan for utilizing these energy values in feeding 

 farm animals. He not only has prepared tables that 

 show the energy value of a number of feeding stuffs, 

 but has formulated feeding standards and a prac- 



1 The idea of using energy values in the computation of 

 rations for farm animals originated with Dr. Kellner of 

 Germany. Dr. Henry Prentiss Armsby, Director of the In- 

 stitute of Animal Nutrition of the Pennsylvania State College, 

 has expressed the energy value of the feed in still another 

 manner. Kellner attempted to express energy value as starch 

 value because this is so familiarly known. Armsby, on the 

 other hand, has followed the simpler and more direct manner 

 of expressing these values by coming out. boldly and entirely 

 to the energy notations, using the therm as the unit instead 

 of the calorie, simply to a,void unnecessarily large numbers. 

 Either manner of expression is entirely justifiable, and in, the 

 two methods the values are identical. 



