MEASURING THE USEFULNESS OF FEEDS 



37 



Digestible nutrients in 100 lbs. of typical feeding stuffs, from Appendix 

 Table III 



Feeding stuff 



Concentrates — 



Dent corn 



Oats 



Wheat 



Wheat bran 



Linseed meal, old process 



Roughages — 



Timothy hay 



Red clover hay 



Oat straw 



Kentucky bluegrass, 



green 



Corn silage 



IMangels 



1:10.4 

 1: 6.3 

 1: 7.7 

 1: 3.9 

 1: 1.6 



1:15.2 

 1: 5.7 

 1:44.6 



1: 7.0 

 1:15.1 

 1: 6.3 



under the term carbohydrates, as is done in this table. The digestible 

 carbohydrates in dent corn are computed as follows: According to 

 Appendix Table I, 100 lbs. of dent corn contains 2.0 lbs. of fiber, 57 

 per ct. of which is digestible, as shown in Appendix Table II. Like- 

 wise there are 70.9 lbs. of nitrogen-free extract, 94 per ct. of which is 

 digestible. Multiplying in each case and adding the products, we have 

 67.8 lbs., the amount of digestible carbohydrates in 100 lbs. of 

 corn. 



To show the entire amount of digestible nutrients in 100 lbs. of each 

 feed, the fifth column gives the sum of the digestible crude protein and 

 carbohydrates, plus the fat multiplied by 2.25, because fat will produce 

 2.25 times as much heat in the body as carbohydrates or protein. 



The table shows the wide differences in the amounts of digestible 

 nutrients these typical feeds furnish. Corn and wheat are high in 

 digestible carbohydrates and rather low in digestible protein, while 

 wheat bran and linseed meal are high in digestible protein but low in 

 digestible carbohydrates. The roughages range lower in digestible 

 nutrients than the concentrates. Oat straw is especially low in digest- 

 ible protein, ^while immature and actively growing pasture grass will 

 contain nearly as much digestible protein as wheat bran, if cut and 

 dried to the same water content. 



Nutritive ratio. — As protein serves special uses in the body, in dis- 

 cussions of feeding stuffs and rations the term nutritive ratio is used to 



