TANKAGE FOR DAIRY COWS 



Table 4. — Amounts of feed eaten. 



Feed 



Hay and rowen 1 . 

 Corn silage 



The amounts of soybean meal and cottonseed meal in the grain 

 mixture were chosen as typical of the percentages of these ingredients 

 occurring in commercial dairy rations. With two exceptions the mixtures 

 were similar. Due to its somewhat higher protein content, 340 pounds 

 of tankage furnished an amount of digestible protein equivalent to 

 that contained in 200 pounds each of the two oil meals Because of 

 the presence of bone in the tankage, bone meal was not included in that 

 mixture The difference (60 +40 = 100 pounds) was made up by includ- 

 ing in the tankage mixture 100 pounds of corn starch per ton. Corn 

 starch was chosen for this purpose because it did not add to the mixture 

 any further protein or minerals. _ 



Except for the variation in the grain mixtures the rations were kept 

 as nearly identical as possible. The other feeds were hay, rowen, corn 

 silage, mangels, and dried beet pulp. Table 4 shows that the average 

 daily intake of feed by the two groups was practically identical the 

 only feed wasted was small amounts of hay and rowen, which were 

 about the same in each group and constituted about 6.0 percent of the 

 combined amount of hay and rowen fed and about 2.3 percent of the 

 total dry matter of the entire ration. 



Table 6. — Average daily intake of nutrients per cow. 1 



Soybean-cottonseed Tankage Ration 

 Ration 



Total dry matter 28.04 pounds 28.08 pounds 



Total ash 1.69 pounds 1.90 pounds 



Digestible protein 2.38 pounds 2.46 pounds 



Total digestible nutrients 19.15 pounds 19.24 pounds 



Net energy 18.51 therms 18.60 therms 



Nutritive ratio 1 : 7.0 1 : 6.8 



'This includes all material fed — not merely the grain mixtures. 



