134 SECOND THOUSAND QUESTIONS IN AGRICULTURE 



Feeding Value of Rice Straw. 



Advise me as to the value of rice strait* as feed? Some tell me it 

 is very good and some that it is injurious. One man told me that it 

 causes constipation in horses, and another that it has the opposite effect. 

 My own experience with it consists of offering it to one cow, which 

 declined to eat it, and two horses that seemed rather fond of it. 



Rice straw cannot be compared with alfalfa hay in feeding value, 

 however, for it contains only a trace of digestible protein (.9 per cent), 

 against over 10 per cent for alfalfa hay. The percentage of total 

 digestible matter in the feeds are, 39.4 per cent for rice straw and 48.6 

 per cent for alfalfa hay. The value of rice straw in comparison with 

 alfalfa hay is doubtless considerably lower than these figures would 

 indicate, for rice straw contains 33.5 per cent of fiber (largely in- 

 digestible), against 25 per cent for alfalfa hay, and has also twice as 

 much mineral matter, mainly silica, as contained in alfalfa hay 

 (14.5 per cent, and 7.3 per cent, respectively). For all that it is well worth 

 while to utilize rice straw for feeding farm animals, especially horses 

 and mules. If they have been on alfalfa hay, it may be necessary to 

 get them pretty hungry before they will eat it, or it may be chopped 

 and fed with some molasses or grain feed to get them to eat it. It 

 cannot take the place of alfalfa hay, however, and horses must be fed 

 more grain when fed rice straw than when receiving alfalfa hay, and 

 a feed of this hay or some grain hay daily will also improve the 

 ration fed. 



In Hungary rice straw is made into silage by being placed in large 

 piles in the fields that are covered with a layer of dirt. The resulting 

 silage makes a succulent feed of a light brown color and a strong 

 acetic-acid odor; it is greatly relished by cattle and when fed in 

 moderate quantities makes a good stock feed. The silo, doubtless, 

 offers the most promising method of securing full value. Good silage 

 can be made from ripe oat straw by running it through a cutter and 

 wetting it down thoroughly as it goes into the silo, and the same 

 method would change rice straw into a desirable roughage feed that 

 would be especially valuable as a supplement to alfalfa for feeding 

 dairy cows. F. W. W. 



Gains From Siloing Alfalfa. 

 Has alfalfa silage proven a success in your State? 



Experience here seems to show that the chief value of a silo for 

 alfalfa lies in the ability to turn the first cutting, which is very often 

 badly infested with fox tail and other objectionable weeds, into suc- 

 culent feed, fully as nutritious as green pasture, which may be fed 

 out gradually as the demands require. Then too, the dangers of 

 bloating on pasture are entirely overcome, for when cows are fed 

 silage they do not require pasture and silage does not bloat the stock. 

 Where corn or any of the sorghums can be grown, it is probably best 

 to silo the first crop of alfalfa and by the time the corn is ripe enough 



