Managing the Dairy Herd 79 



The Value of Silos in Solving the Ration Problem. 



Various experts have agreed that corn silage is 

 probably the best and cheapest source of succulence. 

 There should be a silo on every dairy farm which 

 should be used for the purpose of furnishing this valu- 

 able necessary milk-making food during the winter 

 and the dry months of the summer. Corn, oats and 

 barley are splendid for supplying carbohydrates and 

 dry matter to the dairy herd. All these can be raised 

 almost anywhere. So can clover, alfalfa, sweet clover, 

 vetches, cow peas, soy beans and Canada field peas. 

 Each of these crops are rich in protein and ash. If 

 you will feed hay, made from any of these leguminous 

 crops, together with all the corn silage that the cow 

 will eat you will find that it will form a balanced ration 

 that will be succulent and also that the carbohydrates 

 and fats in the corn silage will be balanced by the pro- 

 tein and dry matter in the hay. This will form a 

 splendid ration for cows giving, say, from fifteen to 

 twenty pounds of milk per day. 



If you are living in the corn belt, you will find that 

 ground corn and cornmeal is a splendid and a cheap 

 concentrated food. This should, in your case, form 

 the basis of the ration. Such a ration supplies every- 

 thing necessary except the protein, ash and the neces- 

 sary variety. It would be well, however, to add such 

 additional rations as ground oats, bran, oil meal, dried 

 distillers 5 grains, gluten feed or some other food rich 

 in gluten. 



Another very well balanced ration, when fed in con- 

 junction with an abundance of corn silage, together 

 with any of the leguminous hays, is a mixture of two 

 parts of ground corn, one part ground oats and one 



