CHAPTER 10 

 FEEDS AND FEEDING 



The food of the domestic animals (excluding the carnivorous house 

 pets, the dog and the cat) is vegetable derived from living plants, or from 

 plants cured in various ways for preservation during that part of the year 

 when plant life is dormant. When we discuss the plants suitable as food 

 for cattle, whether fresh or preserved, we are dealing with forage plants. 

 If the cattle are turned into the open fields to eat the food plants found 

 there, they are consuming the pasture plants, usually the pasture, or 

 pasturage. Soilage, used as a term for the first time in 1900, means sup- 

 plying forage fresh from the field to animals in confinement. The plants, 

 which are grown for this purpose, are known as soiling crops. Fodder is 

 a comprehensive term for cattle food usually fed in bulk and in the dry 

 state, 1 while hay is grass that has been cut and dried for use as fodder. 

 Ensilage, or silage, is the preservation of green forage such, as corn, beet 

 tops, and other plants in a pit dug in the ground, or in a large tank, or 

 vat, above ground known as the silo. By a process of fermentation, the 

 green plant parts are converted into silage. Stover, or corn stover, de- 

 notes the dried stalks of corn from which the ears have been removed. 

 Chemical Constituents. The substances, which have been formed 

 in the living plant through the activity of its living protoplasm in the leaves 

 of the green plant principally, and have found their way into the plant 

 by the active absorption of the roots, or by a gaseous interchange of oxy- 

 gen and carbon dioxide with the air, have been classified by chemists into 

 several groups. These are water, ash, or mineral matter, crude protein, 

 fi er, fat, nitrogen-free extract, carbohydrates. Fresh mangels contain 

 90.6 per cent, of water, i per cent, of ash, 1.4 per cent, crude protein, 

 0.8 per cent, fiber, 6.1 per cent, nitrogen-free extract and o.i per cent. fat. 

 Timothy hay shows on analysis, n.6 per cent, water, 4.9 per cent, ash, 

 6.2 per cent, crude protein, 29.9 per cent, fiber, 45.0 nitrogen-free extract, 

 2.5 per cent, of fat, while dent corn has the composition of 10.5 per cent. 



. * Fodder corn is applied to stalks of corn green or dry with all the ears which have 

 been grown primarily for forage. 



117 



